Wall Street coasts toward the finish of its best week in the last 5
NEW YORK AP Wall Street is coasting toward the finish of its best week in the last five on Friday as U S stocks hang near their record levels The S P slipped from the all-time high it set the day before The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down points or as of a m Eastern time and the Nasdaq composite was higher Both likewise set records the day before Stocks have rallied with expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at its meeting next week Such a move would give the commercial sector a kickstart and mortgage rates have already dropped in anticipation of it Expectations for a cut have built as fresh reports suggested the U S job industry could be hitting the precise balance that Wall Street has been betting on slowing enough to convince the Fed that it demands help but not so weak that it will mean a recession all while inflation doesn t take off A lot is riding on whether that bet proves correct Stocks have already soared on it and if the Fed ends up cutting fewer times than the three that traders expect this year the territory could retreat in disappointment That s even if everything else goes right and the financial market does not fall into a recession and President Donald Trump s tariffs don t send inflation much higher Investors and I think the Fed are convinced that we are not on the verge of a surge in inflation according to Scott Wren senior global area strategist at Wells Fargo Expenditure Institute A survey from the University of Michigan on Thursday also suggested expectations for inflation may not be worsening among U S consumers Preliminary figures suggested they re bracing for inflation of in the upcoming year the same as they were a month earlier In the meantime Wall Street continues to drift around its record heights RH fell after the furniture retailer released profit and revenue for the latest quarter that came up short of analysts expectations It also trimmed its forecasted range for revenue this fiscal year amid what CEO Gary Friedman called the polarizing impact of tariff uncertainty and the worst housing field in almost years Adobe slipped even though the company behind Photoshop and Acrobat revealed a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected It also raised its forecast for profit this fiscal year as CEO Shantanu Narayen credited expansion in artificial-intelligence products Another company that s benefited from the AI frenzy Super Micro Computer rose after saying it s begun high-volume shipments of racks using Blackwell Ultra equipment from Nvidia that can be used for AI Microsoft added after European Union regulators accepted the tech giant s proposed changes to its Teams platform resolving a long-running antitrust analysis The European Commission disclosed Friday that Microsoft s final commitments to unbundle Teams from its Office program suite including further tweaks following a arena test in May and June are enough to satisfy competition concerns In stock markets abroad indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia Japan s Nikkei climbed to another record while Hong Kong s Hang Seng rallied for two of the bigger moves In the bond sector the yield on the -year Treasury climbed to recover certain of its drop from earlier in the week It rose to from late Thursday Yields have been mostly sinking as expectations built on Wall Street that the Fed will resume cutting rates soon The Fed has been on hold with its rate cuts all through mostly due to caution because Trump s tariffs could send prices for all kinds of U S household purchases much higher Lower interest rates can make inflation even worse That inaction though has infuriated Trump He has threatened to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell whom he has nicknamed Too Late and has escalated his attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook accusing her of mortgage fraud On Thursday the Trump administration demanded an appeals court to remove Cook from the Federal Reserve s board of governors by Monday before the central bank announces its next decision on interest rates Wednesday Trump initially sought to fire Cook Aug but a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her to the Fed s board AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed Source
