- US stocks traded mostly lower on Friday but ended up for the week after a cool May CPI report.
- The Nasdaq 100 closed at record highs driven by AI excitement and solid earnings from Broadcom and Adobe.
- Recent Fed comments suggest interest rate cuts are imminent if inflation data continues to cool.
US stocks traded mostly lower on Friday but gained for the week after a cool May inflation report and Apple’s unveiling of its AI ambitions at WWDC.
The S&P 500 hit record highs four days in a row through Thursday, while the Nasdaq 100 closed at record highs every day of the week, with AI excitement driving tech stocks higher following Broadcom’s earnings blowout and solid results from Adobe.
The Nasdaq 100 finished the week higher by more than 3%, while the S&P 500 was up about 1.5%. The Dow Jones, which has little exposure to the AI tech trade, finished the week down about 0.5%.
Comments from outgoing Federal Reserve President Loretta Mester on Friday highlighted that the Fed may be close to cutting interest rates following a string of cool inflation readings.
Both the consumer and the producer price index rose less than expected in May, with the PPI reading the lowest in 10 months.
“It is welcome to see that inflation is moving back down again, we’ll just need to see that continue a bit longer,” Mester told CNBC on Friday.
Fed President Austan Goolsbee said on Friday that he, too, was encouraged by the May CPI report.
“We’ve actually made a lot of progress getting the inflation rate down. We just got to see more progress” before cutting rates, Goolsbee said.
The market currently sees a 61% chance that the Fed will cut rates at its September FOMC meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
Here’s where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. closing bell on Friday:
Here’s what else happened today:
In commodities, bonds, and crypto:
- West Texas Intermediate crude oil dropped 0.09% to $78.55 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was lower by 0.08% to $82.68 a barrel.
- Gold jumped higher by 1.39% to $2,350.30 per ounce.
- The 10-year Treasury yield dropped three basis points to 4.21%.
- Bitcoin declined by 1.99% to $65,417.
