Traders work on the morning trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange on September 4, 2024.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
of S&P 500 Stocks edged up slightly on Thursday as investors bought tech shares after a choppy trading session and digested the latest inflation data.
While the broader market index is above the flat line, Dow Jones Industrial Average It fell 65 points, or 0.2 percent. Nasdaq Composite Index Approximately 0.3% was added.
Shares of big technology and semiconductor companies continued to rise on Thursday, with artificial intelligence giant NVIDIA Add 1.3% alphabet Facebook Parents Meta Each increased by more than 1%.
The inflation data released this week was the final data point ahead of the Federal Reserve's meeting on Sept. 17-18, where the central bank is expected to announce a half-percentage point interest rate cut.
Thursday's producer price index, which measures the average change in prices businesses receive for goods and services, reflected a 0.2% increase in wholesale prices in August, in line with expectations. The PPI report follows consumer price index data released on Wednesday, which showed an increase in core prices but also showed that inflation in August fell to its lowest level since February 2021.
Weekly jobless claims data released Thursday also showed a slight increase in the number of people filing for unemployment benefits, to 230,000 in the week ending Sept. 7.
Investors ended a choppy trading session with stocks initially dragged down by the Consumer Price Index report, but tech stocks rallied late on, helping major indexes recover from lows.
“Typically, people are in wait-and-see mode ahead of the Fed meeting next week,” said Mona Mahajan, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones, noting that markets had been volatile amid a seasonally weak September, but that she still expects economic growth to “slow but not collapse.”
“We think this volatility could continue,” Mahajan continued, “but if we're in a situation where the Fed is cutting rates, inflation is gradually easing and we're able to achieve a soft landing, historically that's a situation where markets should continue to do well. That remains our base case.”
