Wall Street Higher, Nasdaq on Track for Weekly Gain
On Friday stocks on Wall Street traded higher, ending the week on a positive note despite worries about high interest rates and persistent inflation.
The NASDAQ Composite gained 60 points, or 0.4%, the S&P 500 rose 20 points, or 0.4%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 25 points, or 0.1%.
The main indexes on Wall Street inched higher on Friday, but were on track for weekly losses, with the exception of the Nasdaq Composite, after the minutes of the Fed’s April meeting showed that policymakers were getting more worried about sticky inflation.
Goldman Sachs analysts have pushed back when they anticipate the Fed would cut interest rates this year, and cited comments from this week’s central bank officials requiring more evidence that inflation in the biggest economy in the world is sustainably easing down to the 2% target.
Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note to clients on Friday they now don’t expect the Fed to cut rates until Sept. They had previously forecast that the cut would be made in July.
The CME Fedwatch tool indicated a chance of about 45% that the Fed will cut rates from a more than 2-decade high level of between 5.25% and 5.5% in Sept.