US stocks drifted higher on Wednesday following strong profit reports from big companies.
- The S&P 500 rose 28.81 points, or 0.4%, to 7,572.40 after flipping between modest gains and losses through the day.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 150.37 points, or 0.3%, to 52,658.64.
- The Nasdaq composite rose 162.22 points, or 0.6%, to 26,269.23.
Stocks got a lift from easing yields in the bond market after data showed US inflation
slowed at the wholesale level last month, the
AP reports. Inflation at the wholesale level slowed to 5.5% from 6% in May, and it was much better than the acceleration that economists expected.
BlackRock helped lead the market with a rise of 6.6% after the company behind some of the most popular investment funds reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Laurence Fink said its iShares funds topped $6 trillion in assets under management during the quarter, roughly doubling in three years. Bank of New York Mellon rose 5.1% after adding to the spate of strong earnings reports from many of the biggest US banks a day earlier. Cintas climbed 4.4% after the provider of office uniforms, restroom supplies, and other products likewise delivered a better profit for the latest quarter than analysts forecast.
- They helped offset a drop for Elevance Health, which fell 8.5% even though it reported stronger profit and revenue than analysts expected.
Following the inflation report, traders see just a 10% chance that the Fed will raise its main interest rate at its next meeting in a couple of weeks. That's down from the nearly 42% probability they saw on Monday, according to data from CME Group. Also helping to pull down expectations was a speech from John Williams, president of the New York Fed. He said that "there are encouraging reasons to expect that inflation has peaked and should edge down in coming quarters."
- Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, meanwhile, gave few clues on what to expect from the Fed in testimony before a Senate committee. "Any central banker would be happy to have data going in the right direction," he said about this week's encouraging inflation reports, but "these are all imperfect measures of the state of underlying inflation."
- Upward pressure on inflation remains because of the war with Iran, which has seen days of back-and-forth strikes by the United States and Iran across the Middle East. Iran's Revolutionary Guard threatened Wednesday to halt all energy exports from the Middle East because of the US military's blockade to prevent tankers carrying Iranian oil from using the Strait of Hormuz. The price for a barrel of Brent crude briefly topped $86 in the morning before falling back to settle at $84.95 per barrel, up 0.3% from the day before
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