Nike sends S&P 500 racing to record high
A mixed close on Friday didn't take the shine from one of the best weeks for the stock market in about two months.
The Dow rallied 237 points. The S&P 500 logged another record close thanks to a 14-point jump. But the Nasdaq broke its streak of record closing highs as a rise in interest rates spooked tech stocks.
Investors were mostly heartened by the Federal Reserve's favored measure of inflation, which continued to move higher in May, but not by as much as feared. Personal consumption expenditures, excluding food and energy, otherwise known as the core PCE, posted its biggest annual increase since 1992. The consumer spending component was flat as a drop in spending on manufactured goods offset a surge in spending for services like going out to eat and travel.
Some investors like Jimmy Chang, chief investment officer for the Rockefeller Global Family Office see a calming inflation rate will take the pressure of the Fed to curtail its bond-buying program sooner, rather than later.
"So with the core PCE number it is certainly right around expectation, and I do expect heading into the next few months, potentially the numbers on a year-over-year basis will start to come off just because the comparison gets more difficult. But I think people will be more focused on the sequential change and we can make a case that some inflation is transitory because the supply chain right now has so much bottleneck."
In individual stock action: Nike was a market standout. The leading athletic gear company forecast full-year sales of more than $50 billion after quarterly revenue nearly doubled. Profits were also better than expected. Shares of Nike jumped to a record high - soaring more than 15 percent on the day.
It was a different story for FedEx. Shares of the express package shipper slumped more than 3 percent. FedEx tempered 2022 full-year expectations as it grapples with higher labor costs. CEO Fred Smith told analysts that operations are being hurt by the company's inability to find enough workers, which means he's having to pay more in overtime.
