Xinhua News
28th January 2023 – (New York) U.S. stocks climbed on Friday as investors parsed the latest economic data.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 28.67 points, or 0.08 percent, to 33,978.08. The S&P 500 added 10.13 points, or 0.25 percent, to 4,070.56. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 109.30 points, or 0.95 percent, to 11,621.71.
Six of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in green, with consumer discretionary and real estate up 2.27 percent and 0.94 percent, respectively, outpacing the rest. Energy dipped 1.99 percent, the worst-performing group.
The U.S. Commerce Department reported Friday that the U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditures price index excluding food and energy, a key measure of inflation, increased 4.4 percent year on year in December, down from the 4.7-percent reading in November and roughly in line with market consensus.
“Improving supply chain functioning is calming core inflation, but the Fed’s current inflation focus, core services ex-shelter, is still too high,” Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial, said Friday in a note.
Elsewhere, U.S. consumer sentiment index rose to 64.9 in January, up from 59.7 in December, according to a survey released by the University of Michigan.
For the week, the Dow rose 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 gained 2.5 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 4.3 percent.
