Closing on July 16: U.S. stocks closed higher, with the Dow rising 150 points. Google and other large technology stocks drove the stock index higher
In the early morning of July 16, Beijing time, U.S. stocks closed higher on Wednesday. The outstanding performance of large-cap technology stocks has driven the market upward. The U.S. PPI unexpectedly fell by 0.3% in June, indicating that inflation is cooling. The Dow rose 150.37 points, or 0.29%, to 52,658.64 points; the Nasdaq rose 162.22 points, or 0.62%, to 26,269.23 points; the S&P 500 rose 28.81 points, or 0.38%, to 7,572.40 points. Investors appear to be reducing exposure to key semiconductor stocks and shifting funds to some large-cap technology stocks. Notably, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet were all up about 3%. Apple also rose 4%. Technology shares fell 8%, and Lam Research shares fell more than 4%. and Advanced Micro Devices fell 4.4% and 3.5% respectively. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) fell 2%. Investors are taking stock of inflation. New York Fed President John - "There are encouraging reasons to expect that inflation has peaked and will gradually fall back over the next few quarters," he said in a speech on Wednesday. Data released on Wednesday showed that the producer price index unexpectedly fell 0.3% in June, while economists had expected the data to be flat month-on-month. The index also showed an annual inflation rate of 5.5%. "I don't think that rules out a rate hike because if the target is indeed 2%, these numbers are still well above 2%," said Melissa Brown, head of global investment decision research at SimCorp. "The market today may be overreacting to some news." The PPI report comes after lower-than-expected consumer price index data released on Tuesday, boosting hopes that the Federal Reserve may not need to raise interest rates so aggressively this year. The report prompted traders to lower their expectations for near-term tightening by the Federal Reserve. Although the likelihood of a rate hike at the central bank's July meeting has declined over the past few days, according to the CME FedWatch tool, traders still expect a rate hike later this year. They predict there is about a 60% chance that interest rates will rise by a quarter or half a percentage point by the end of the October meeting. The market continues to pay attention to the latest developments in the situation between the United States and Iran. The U.S. Central Command posted on the X platform on Wednesday that the United States launched a second wave of strikes against Iran at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. "This strike targeted Iran's military capabilities used to threaten the freedom of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway critical to global trade," Central Command said.