Stock market today: Wall Street extends its rally and closes at highest level since March 2022
Stocks gained ground on Wall Street as the market comes off its best month in more than a year
A broad rally on Wall Street closed out a fifth straight week of gains for the market Friday, driving the S&P 500 to its highest level in more than a year.
The benchmark index rose 0.6%, eclipsing its previous high for the year set in July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.8% higher, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.6%. Gainers outnumbered decliners by roughly 6-to-1 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The latest gains followed the market's best month in more than a year. Growing expectations on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates as soon as early next year have put investors in a buying mood.
“A lot of investors now are accelerating when the Fed is likely to initiate its first cut to the end of the first quarter of 2024, rather than the the prior forecast of some time in the second quarter,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA.
Hope that the Federal Reserve is finally done raising interest rates in its fight to control inflation helped push markets steadily higher through much of November. Recent economic data supports that view.
On Thursday, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation showed a cooling last month. Inflation has been easing overall since the middle of 2022 when the Fed started aggressively raising its benchmark interest rate. That followed mostly encouraging updates on economic growth and consumer confidence that have raised hopes that the Fed will achieve its sought-after “soft landing,” which involves cooling the inflation without throwing the economy into a recession.
A government report on Friday showed that construction spending continued rising in October,
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