S&P 500 closes out its fourth straight winning month

NEW YORK â€”  Stocks on Wall Street finished broadly higher Friday as the market closed out its fourth straight winning month with solid gains.

A late-afternoon rally helped stocks bounce back from a midafternoon slide. The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 1%, with about 76% of the stocks in the index notching gains.

The benchmark S&P 500 closed August with a 2.3% gain for the month. It’s now up 18.4% so far this year and is within 0.4% of the all-time high it set in July.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.6%, setting its fourth all-time high this week.

The Nasdaq composite ended 1.1% higher.

Wall Street spent the day mulling over encouraging reports on inflation, consumer spending and income.

The Commerce Department said its personal consumption expenditures report showed prices rose just 0.2% from June to July, up slightly from the previous month’s 0.1% increase. Compared with a year earlier, inflation was unchanged at 2.5%.

Economists had expected the PCE, which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, to show that inflation edged up to 2.6% in July. It was as high as 7.1% in the middle of 2022.

The report confirms price increases are cooling, keeping the central bank on track to cut rates for the first time in more than four years at its upcoming meeting next month. The market is betting that the Fed will cut its benchmark rate by a full 1% by the end of the year.

“Weakening inflation gives the Fed plenty of room to begin cutting rates, while still resilient household spending is the recipe for a soft landing,� said David Alcaly, lead macroeconomic strategist at Lazard Asset Management.

Bond yields were mixed in the Treasury market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.92% from 3.86% late Thursday.

Technology stocks led the market. Marvell Technology climbed 9.2% after its latest quarterly results hit Wall Street’s sales and profit targets. Other chipmakers also rose. Broadcom added 3.8% and Nvidia gained 1.5%.

Dell also beat analysts’ second-quarter forecasts, boosted by record server and networking revenue as companies continue to beef up their artificial intelligence infrastructure. Its shares rose 4.3%.

Mall-based cosmetics retailer Ulta Beauty fell 4% after its sales and profit fell short of expectations. Ulta also trimmed its guidance below analysts’ forecasts. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed it holds a stake in the company earlier this month.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 56.44 points to 5,648.40. The Dow advanced 228.03 points to 41,563.08. The Nasdaq gained 197.19 points to close at 17,713.62.

Mostly solid U.S. earnings and economic growth updates capped off a month of encouraging reports for the broader economy. Data from various reports in August have shown that retail sales, employment and consumer confidence remain strong.

Friday’s Commerce Department report also showed that Americans stepped up their spending by a vigorous 0.5% from June to July, up from 0.3% the previous month, and incomes rose 0.3%, faster in July than in the previous month.

The trends have encouraged Wall Street. Still, stocks have historically done poorly in September.

Since 1950, the S&P 500 has finished higher in September only 43% of the time, making it the worst month for stocks, said Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial.

“During the month, the index tends to trade sideways during the first half, with losses beginning to accumulate into month end,� Turnquist said.

Investors will be looking for clues on the Fed’s next move next Friday, when the government serves up its latest monthly jobs report. Economists polled by FactSet are estimating that the economy added 155,000 jobs in August. That would follow a gain of 114,000 the previous month.

“The payroll data next week is incredibly important,� said Liz Young Thomas, head of investment strategy at SoFi.

Markets in Europe rose initially after a report showed inflation fell sharply in the European Union this month. The report sets up the European Central Bank to cut interest rates next month. Major stock indexes in the region turned red by late afternoon. France’s CAC 40 slipped 0.1%, Germany’s DAX and Britain’s FTSE 100 were essentially flat.

Markets in Asia rose. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 added 0.7% to finish at 38,647.75 after data on the world’s fourth-largest economy came in mostly positive.

U.S. stock exchanges will be closed Monday for the Labor Day holiday.

Veiga writes for the Associated Press.