On Wall Street, stock indices slightly rose on Thursday, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 reaching new record levels. The Dow Jones strengthened by 0.16 percent to 45,636 points, while the S&P 500 increased by 0.32 percent to 6,501 points, and the Nasdaq index rose by 0.53 percent to 21,705 points. The new record for the S&P 500 is attributed to the rise in stock prices in seven of the 11 major sectors of the index, particularly in the communication sector, which averaged a 0.9 percent increase.
Although Nvidia reported better-than-expected quarterly results, the stock price of the world’s largest company by market capitalization slipped by 0.8 percent. However, messages from this largest global producer of artificial intelligence chips regarding strong demand supported the stocks of companies related to AI development.
As a result, the stock price of Alphabet rose by 2 percent, Amazon by about 1 percent, and Broadcom by nearly 3 percent. Today, however, the focus for investors will be the report on household costs, which will indicate how inflation is moving in the U.S.
If inflation is shown to be rising again, the question will arise whether the U.S. central bank has room to cut interest rates in September. Conversely, if inflation weakens, investors believe it is almost certain that the Fed will lower rates at the next meeting. Expectations that the Fed will soon reduce rates are the main reason for the strong rise in stock prices in recent months.
European markets are trading cautiously on Friday morning. The STOXX 600 index of leading European stocks was down 0.1 percent at 9:30 AM, indicating a path toward weekly losses. The London FTSE index weakened by 0.11 percent to 9,207 points, while the Frankfurt DAX slipped by 0.03 percent to 24,035 points, and the Paris CAC fell by 0.04 percent to 7,759 points.
