US Stocks Lower; Fed's Preferred Inflation Gauge Surges To Highest Level Since February

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Nasdaq Composite falling more than 0.4% on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 0.22% to 45,537.65 while the NASDAQ fell 0.44% to 21,610.49. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.24% to 6,486.33.

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Leading and Lagging SectorsEnergy shares jumped by 0.3% on Friday.

In trading on Friday, information technology stocks fell by 0.8%.

Top Headline

An inflation reading closely tracked by the Federal Reserve climbed to its highest level since February, remaining stubbornly above the 2% target and raising new doubts around the timing of Jerome Powell’s anticipated interest rate cuts.

In July, the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index—the Fed’s broad measure of inflation—increased 2.6% from a year earlier, right in line with Wall Street expectations. On a month-over-month basis, it climbed 0.2%, also matching forecasts, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Friday.

However, the core PCE index, which excludes food and energy and ...