Stock Market Today: Dow in best week since July as jobs data boost Fed pause bets
Investing.com — The Dow on Friday notched its best week since July, as a monthly jobs report showing cooling wage growth in July, underpinned optimism that slowing inflation will likely persist and encourage the Federal Reserve keep rates steady next month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3%, 116 points, taking gains for the week to 2%. The Nasdaq rose 0.1%, the S&P 500 was up 0.2%.
The economy created 187,000 jobs in July, up from 157,000 the prior month, beating economists’ estimates for 170,000.
Average hourly earnings slowed to a 0.2% pace last month from 0.4%, slower than the 0.3% economists had expected as a rise in labor supply, or the participation rate, unexpectedly pushed unemployment rate higher to 3.8% from 3.5%.
The move all but cemented bets for the Federal Reserve to keep rates steady on Sept. 20,with some on Wall Street suggesting that the Fed could be with rate hikes.
“We do not believe today's report was strong enough to meet the bar for the Fed to hike in September and think the Fed reached the peak of this cycle in July at 5.25%-5.50%,” Morgan Stanley said in a note.
Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) fell more than 5% even as the chipmaker reported better-than-expected quarterly results, as demand for its chips and software was boosted by growing AI demand.
The results show the chipmaker has addressed two focus areas investor concern, Deutsche Bank says, boosting revenue from AI and easing its reliance on cyclical businesses including broadband and server storage connectivity.
AI revenues jumped 50% sequentially in F4Q, Deutsche Bank saysand will make up over 25% of the firm’s semiconductor revenue in fiscal 2024.
Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL), meanwhile, reported second-quarter results that topped Wall
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