Moomoo U.S. Markets Look Ahead for Friday

Wall Street will be watching Friday morning for the August Consumer Price Index measure of U.S. inflation.

That will be the last major economic report to come out before next week's Federal Reserve interest-rate meeting.

High inflation could cement expectations that the Fed will raise its benchmark Federal Funds rate, while low inflation could boost the chances of the central bank leaving rates unchanged.

The CME FedWatch tool put the odds Thursday afternoon at better than 70% that the Fed will hike rates by 25 basis points.

That probability shot up after $Crude Oil Futures (NOV6) (CLmain.US)$ rose more than 7% intraday Thursday to top $100 a barrel in New York trading for the first time in May. Oil rose as the U.S.-Iran War continued to heat up.

Meanwhile, the Producer Price Index – which measures wholesale U.S. inflation – came in at 0.4% for August, in line with economist forecasts.

Still, the PPI rose during August at a 5.4% annual rate – well above the Fed's 2% target for U.S. inflation.

All of that helped push the $U.S. 10-Year Treasury Notes Yield (US10Y.BD)$ as high as 4.971% on Thursday. That's its loftiest level in some three years.

Higher bond yields historically hurt stocks by pulling away some investor dollars from equities.

That helped drive stock prices lower Thursday, as did declines for some key tech stocks.

$Vertiv Holdings (VRT.US)$, $CoreWeave (CRWV.US)$, $Intel (INTC.US)$, $Micron Technology (MU.US)$, $SK hynix (SKHY.US)$, $SanDisk (SNDK.US)$, $Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$, $Marvell Technology (MRVL.US)$, $Lumentum (LITE.US)$ and $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ all fell. Many fell after recently hitting near-term highs.

However, their Thursday losses offset gains for select tech stocks like $Apple (AAPL.US)$. The tech giant rose 3.6% in apparent delayed reaction to Wednesday's unveiling of the Apple's first foldable iPhone.

$SpaceX (SPCX.US)$ also inched up 0.4% Thursday on multiple positive catalysts.

Still, the $Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC.US)$ ended up 0.7% lower on Thursday, while the $Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ and $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ both shed 0.6%. All three indices have fallen for four straight sessions. (Click here for a complete recap of Thursday's market action.)

In after-hours trading, $Oracle (ORCL.US)$ rose 4.1% at last check Thursday night on well-received quarterly earnings, but $Adobe (ADBE.US)$fell 2.4% following its own numbers release.

Looking ahead to Friday's trading, we'll only get one significant earnings report during the day. Grocery giant $The Kroger Co. (KR.US)$ will release numbers before the U.S. bell.

And in economic news, look for the preliminary September University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey in addition to the CPI.

Today's Poll Question

Word from the Herd

What will you be watching in the coming session? Use the comments section below to tell us.

1M Views