Traders work the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City on May 31, 2023.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced Friday despite a new inflation report coming in higher than anticipated.
The broad index added 177 points, or 0.5%, helped by rallies of more than 1% in UnitedHealth and Honeywell. The S&P 500 edged up 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite slid 0.2%, pulled down by a sell-off in semiconductor stocks such as Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia and Micron.
July’s producer price index rose 0.3% from the previous month. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected the report, which tracks the price wholesalers pay for raw goods, to increase 0.2% month over month.
The report came a day after July’s consumer price index, another major inflation reading for markets and the Federal Reserve, came in softer than anticipated on a year-over-year basis. Prices climbed 3.2% on an annual basis, less than the consensus estimate of 3.3%.
To be sure, the CPI reading showed some signs of stickiness. So-called core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, rose 4.7% from the prior year.
“Investors are pulling petals from a daisy saying the Fed will raise rates, the Fed won’t raise rates again, when they meet in September,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are bound for declines of 0.5% and 1.9%, respectively, on the week. Both are on pace for their second straight losing week — a first of that length for the technology-heavy Nasdaq since the conclusion of a four-week losing streak in December 2022.
The Dow is an outlier of the three major averages, on track for a 0.4% gain this week.