STORY: Wall Street posted modest gains on Friday, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its biggest weekly gain of the year as investors looked forward to key inflation data to be released next week.
The Dow closed up about one-third of a percent, marking its eighth consecutive day of gains. The S&P 500 ended with a slight decline, and the Nasdaq was almost flat but ended in the red.
All three indexes posted further gains for the week, but a quiet end to the week meant investors remained firm until next week's highly anticipated April Consumer Price Index, or CPI, report. suggested the possibility that
The U.S. Department of Labor is scheduled to release the report on Wednesday, making it one of the last reports the Federal Reserve must review before deciding whether to cut interest rates.
So this is important, said Glenn Smith, chief investment officer at GDS Wealth Management.
“We expect CPI numbers to continue trending downward toward the Fed's 2% target rate. If the CPI numbers trend down to 2.2%, we think it is very likely that we will see a rate cut in July rather than June. And if you're really surprised and inflation is falling dramatically, it probably is. There is a possibility that production will be cut twice this year.”
Nvidia shares rose about 1.3% after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest chipmaker and Nvidia's main supplier, reported a nearly 60% increase in sales in April.
SoundHound stock rose more than 7% after the company beat first-quarter revenue estimates.
And Novavax's stock nearly doubled on Friday after the vaccine maker announced it had signed a licensing deal with Sanofi worth up to $1.2 billion.
