LIVE MARKETS-US stocks take hot PPI in stride, S&P 500 ekes out record close

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US STOCKS TAKE HOT PPI IN STRIDE, S&P 500 EKES OUT RECORD CLOSE

Wall Street's main indexes were mixed and barely changed on Thursday, even after a hotter-than-expected producer prices report dampened investor expectations for potential interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve this year.

A Labor Department report showed producer prices increased the most in three years in July due to a surge in the costs of goods and services, suggesting a broad pickup in inflation was imminent.

Traders trimmed their Fed rate-cut expectations for the rest of the year to 57.3 basis points, according to data compiled by LSEG, compared with around 63 bps just before the report.

But they are still fully pricing in a quarter-percentage-point cut in September.

In any event, stocks digested the report, and were able to recover from an opening slide.

The S&P 500 index ended up 0.03% on the day to eke out its 18th record closing high of 2025. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC and Dow .DJI edged lower by 0.01% and 0.02% on the day. The IXIC closed down 0.01% from its August 13 record close, while the Dow finished down 0.23% from its December 4, 2024 record close.

A majority of S&P 500 sectors ended lower with industrials .SPLRCI, down 0.9%, the weakest group. Financials .SPSY, up 0.6%, led gainers.

FANGs .NYFANG, Mag 7 stocks MAGS.K, and big banks .SPXBK were also among outperformers on the day.

Of note, shares of Intel INTC.O surged more than 7% on a report that the U.S. was weighing potentially taking a stake in the company. The chip index .SOX ended down 0.12% on the day.

Among economic data releases on Friday are July retail sales and U Mich preliminary sentiment for August.

Expectations call for month-over-month retail sales to come in at 0.5% vs 0.6% last month. U Mich is expected at 62.0 vs 61.7 last month.

Here is a snapshot of where markets stood just shortly after 4:00 p.m. EDT:

(Terence Gabriel)

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EARLIER ON LIVE MARKETS:

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