Wall Street Nears Records As Fed Interest Rate Cuts Loom

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks were rising closer to their records on Friday as they finished out their fourth winning week in the last five.

The S&P 500 was 0.5% higher in morning trading and just 0.7% below its all-time high set in July. It's roared to claw back almost all its losses from last week, which was its worst in nearly 18 months.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 295 points, or 0.7%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher.

Technology stocks have been the market’s main drivers this week, particularly Nvidia and other big technology stocks that struggled earlier this summer on concerns their prices had shot too high in the frenzy around artificial intelligence.

Tech giant Oracle helped drive Friday’s gains after giving long-term financial forecasts that analysts said topped their expectations. The software company climbed 2% to cap a strong week that began with a better-than-expected profit report for the latest quarter. Oracle is on pace for a 16% gain for the week and potentially its best such performance in more than two decades.

Stocks were also getting support from the bond market, where Treasury yields were easing ahead of next week’s meeting of the Federal Reserve. The consensus expectation is that the Fed will deliver the first cut to interest rates in more than four years on Wednesday.

Inflation has slowed from its peak two summers ago, which is encouraging the Federal Reserve to turn more focus to the slowing job market and economy. It has been keeping its federal funds rate at a two-decade high for more than a year.

How much to cut rates by will be a delicate balancing act for the Fed: Lowering them rates can relieve pressure on the economy, but that can also give inflation more fuel. Reports earlier this week showed some underlying upward pressure may remain on inflation, which initially pushed traders to ratchet back expectations for the size of the Fed’s move next week.

On Friday, though, traders were seeing nearly a coin flip’s chance that the Fed could deliver a large cut of half of a percentage point, instead of the more traditional quarter of a point, according to data from CME Group. The federal funds rate is currently sitting in range of 5.25% to 5.50%.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 3.66% from 3.68% late Thursday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, fell to 3.59% from 3.65%.

On Wall Street, home-furnishings company RH jumped 22.6% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. The company said demand has been gaining momentum each month “despite operating in the most challenging housing market in three decades.”

The housing market has been contending with high mortgage rates, though they've been easing since the spring with Treasury yields on expectations for coming rate cuts. Shoppers generally have also been ground down by high prices across the economy, though a preliminary reading on U.S. consumer sentiment on Friday came in better than economists expected.

Uber Technologies revved 6.8% higher after it said it will bring autonomous ride-hailing to Austin and Atlanta with Waymo early next year.

They helped offset a 2% drop for Boeing, as aircraft assembly workers walked off the job early Friday. Union members voted overwhelmingly to go on strike and reject the troubled aerospace giant’s tentative contract that would have increased wages by 25% over four years.

Adobe fell 8.9%, even though the company also reported better profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts said investors were more focused on its financial forecasts for the current quarter, where some trends looked to be falling short of expectations.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were higher in Europe after finishing mixed in Asia.

___

AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.

Court Could Clear Path for Americans to Bet Legally on U.S. Elections

Amid the explosion of legal gambling in the U.S., some things have remained off-limits. But that could be about to change.

Wall Street Rises After Worst Day in a Month

Stocks are rising on Wall Street, a day after the market’s worst performance in a month.

Price Pressures Easing, Says Fed’s Favored Inflation Gauge

An inflation measure closely tracked by the Federal Reserve remained low last month, extending a trend of cooling price increases.

How Nvidia Keeps Beating Expectations, by the Numbers

Nvidia has once again turned out quarterly results that easily exceeded Wall Street’s forecasts.

New Surveys Show Signs of Optimism Among Small Business Owners

Surveys show small business owners overall are feeling positive about their business and achieving the goals they set for this year despite inflation.