Traders work on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor.
New York Stock Exchange
Stock futures edged higher Sunday night as Wall Street prepared for the start of the second quarter.
Futures and Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 110 points, or 0.3%, while S&P 500 Index Futures and Nasdaq 100 Futures rose 0.3% and 0.5% respectively.
The personal consumption expenditures price index released during the Good Friday holiday showed that inflation rose 2.8% in February, in line with expectations. The U.S. Commerce Department said the inflation indicator closely watched by the Federal Reserve also rose 0.3% from a month ago.
“This signals slow progress on inflation and provides another bullet for those who are calling the Fed’s bluff about the next rate cut,” said Giuseppe Sette, co-founder and president of Toggle AI. “As a reminder, the Fed has always Keep interest rates above inflation unless they foresee a slowdown in the economy.”
In other news, the major stock indexes performed well in the first quarter.this S&P 500 Index rose 10.2%, the best quarterly gain since 2019, while Dow Jones Industrial Average It grew 5.6%, the best quarterly performance since 2021. Nasdaq Index Soared 9.1%.
The market also ended March’s gains and posted its fifth straight month of gains, with the S&P and Dow rising 3.1% and 2.1% respectively. The Nasdaq edged up 1.8% this month.
Continued bets on artificial intelligence stocks and news from Nvidia After a strong 2023, the new year continues to drive markets higher. At the same time, the Federal Reserve is expected to begin a rate-cutting cycle later this year, with markets expecting a rate cut as early as June.
Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group, said the rally is likely to continue. He noted that in its history of first-quarter gains of more than 10%, the S&P has gained more than 10% 11 times.
Wall Street is bracing for a busy week of economic data starting on Monday with construction spending data for February and ISM manufacturing data for March. The keynote for the March jobs report will be released on Friday.
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