Wall Street edges up ahead of holidays
The S&P 500 closed higher on Friday, in a light trading day ahead of a long weekend, as investors assessed inflation data against rate hike and recession fears while energy shares jumped on higher oil prices. A Commerce Department report showed US consumer spending barely rose in November, while inflation cooled further, but not enough to discourage the U.S. Federal Reserve from driving interest rates to higher levels next year. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, rose 0.1 percent last month after climbing 0.4 percent in October. A benchmark survey showed US consumers expect price pressures to moderate notably in the next year, with the one-year inflation outlook dropping to the lowest in 18 months in December. Wall Street indexes had sold off sharply on Thursday after revised data had indicated a resilient American economy, fueling worries that the Federal Reserve could keep hiking rates for longer and end up pushing the economy into a recession. But Friday's data and the fact that it came in roughly in line with expectations, eased some of those concerns for now, according to Shawn Cruz, head trading strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago, Illinois. "This is a clear indication that this is a bad news is good news kind of market. The market wants the Fed to feel what they're doing has been enough," said Cruz. "It is on edge over what the path for Fed policy is going to be for next year as that's going to drive the economy and corporate earnings." Investors have been jittery since last week as the Fed indicated that it remains stubbornly committed to achieving the 2 percent inflation goal and projected rate hikes to above 5 percent in 2023, a level not seen since 2007. Joe Quinlan Head of CIO Market Strategy at Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank also called Fed hawkishness "the big cloud on the horizon." "Today is more of a muted response to good data but still it's not all clear, mission accomplished," he said, adding that analyst earnings estimates for 2023 are likely too high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.53 percent, to 33,204, the S&P 500 gained 0.59 percent, to 3,845 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.21 percent, to 10,498. (Reuters)