STORY: U.S. stocks ended mostly higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq snapping streaks of weekly gains that had lasted more than a month.
The Dow rose about 1.5%, the S&P added 0.8% and the Nasdaq was roughly flat with a slight decline.
The Commerce Department's personal consumption expenditures price index (PCE) released on Friday showed inflation rose 0.3% last month, the same rate of increase as in March.
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the rate rose 0.2 percent.
“That wasn't a very good report…”
Eric Lynch, managing director at Scharf Investments, is keeping an eye on what's called the core rate.
“We're still not out of this slump. We haven't seen any real improvement in months. PCE, the Fed's preferred inflation measure, was up 2.8% year over year. As I said, it's been stuck there for a while. There was one sign of improvement – it was up about 0.2% month over month, down slightly from 0.3% the month before. So it's moving ever so slightly in the right direction, but not enough to cause the Fed to reverse course.”
The market continues to see around a 50% chance that the central bank will start cutting interest rates in September.
Technology and semiconductor stocks, which have driven Wall Street's recent gains, have fallen this week as a surge in Treasury yields has weighed on riskier assets.
Among gainers, apparel maker Gap Inc.'s shares surged more than 28.5% after the company raised its full-year sales outlook and reported first-quarter results that beat expectations, another sign that its turnaround strategy is starting to work.
Security solutions provider Zscaler's shares rose 8.5% after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results.
And shares of Trump Media and Technology Group fell 5.5% after a New York jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of falsifying documents to cover up payments to porn actresses before the 2016 election.
