Stocks rose mostly higher on Thursday as tech stocks gained following a cooler-than-expected inflation reading for March. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped just below the flatline, while the S&P 500 Index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.7% and 1.7%, respectively.
Here's how the market settled on Thursday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
Moving Markets:
March's producer price index (PPI) reading rose at a less-than-expected pace, the Labor Department reported Thursday, providing a much needed boost to outlooks regarding inflation and the Federal Reserve's potential rate-cutting campaign. Headline PPI rose 0.2% month-to-month, below estimates and down from February's increase of 0.6%. On an annual basis, PPI rose 2.1%, marking the largest gain since April 2023.
Excluding food and energy prices, core PPI rose 0.2% on the month, while also excluding trade services saw monthly PPI up 0.2% on the month and 2.8% year-over-year.
Thursday's inflation report comes one day after the Labor Department's consumer price index (CPI) reading for March came in hotter-than-expected, raising concerns that the central bank will maintain its current interest rate target for a longer timeline.
Zoom In:
New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said Thursday he expects inflation to continue to ease this year, but "there will likely be bumps along the way, as we've seen in some recent inflation readings."
"The economy has come a long way toward achieving better balance and reaching our 2% inflation goal," Williams said in a speech in New York. "But we have not seen the total alignment of our dual mandate quite yet. I am committed to achieving maximum employment and price stability over the long term."
In the News:
Amazon
"I think every one of us at Amazon believes that we have a long way to go, in every one of our businesses, before we exhaust how we can make customers' lives better and easier, and there is considerable upside in each of the businesses in which we're investing," Jassy wrote.
"While we're building a substantial number of GenAI applications ourselves, the vast majority will ultimately be built by other companies," Jassy added. "However, what we're building in AWS is not just a compelling app or foundation model."
For Friday:
Market participants will turn their attention to the "official" start of the second-quarter earnings season, with companies including JPMorgan Chase
