Wall St rises on hopes of debt deal breakthrough

By Shreyashi Sanyal and Shristi Achar A

(Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Friday over progress in negotiations on raising the U.S. debt ceiling, with investors shrugging off data pointing to slightly hotter-than-expected inflation.

After several rounds of talks, President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy were closing in on a deal to increase the government’s $31.4 trillion debt limit for two years, while capping spending on most items, a U.S. official told Reuters.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo also said on Friday that lawmakers were making progress.

Despite gains in morning trade, the and the were on course for weekly declines, weighed down by prolonged debt ceiling talks in the face of the June 1 deadline. The Dow was set to snap a 5-day losing streak.

“I feel optimistic that the situation will get resolved, as a U.S. default on debt is simply not an option. That said, because a resolution is the consensus view, a default would trigger a very severe market reaction,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.

Data showed the Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, considered to be the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, remained at 0.4% for April.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the PCE price index, however, rose 0.4% last month, slightly above expectations of 0.3%.

Money market traders now see a near 60% chance of a 25-basis-point hike by the Fed in its June policy meet, up from about 40% before the data.

At 9:52 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 205.14 points, or 0.63%, at 32,969.79, the S&P 500 was up 23.63 points, or 0.57%, at 4,174.91, and the was up 102.16 points, or 0.80%, at 12,800.25.

Ford Motor (NYSE:) Co gained 2.5% on signing a deal allowing its customers to access more than 12,000 Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc Superchargers in North America in early 2024. Tesla rose 1.9%.

Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:) Inc dropped 12.1% after the cosmetics retailer cut its annual operating margin forecast.

Chipmaker Marvell (NASDAQ:) Technology Inc jumped 25.1% after it forecast its annual artificial intelligence (AI) revenue would double.

This comes just as shares of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Nvidia (NASDAQ:) Corp, hit a record high on Thursday after its bumper forecast. Nvidia shares were up 0.3%.

Paramount Global added 5.7% after the media conglomerate’s controlling shareholder National Amusements received a $125 million investment and as Loop Capital upgraded to “hold”.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.72-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.49-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 10 new 52-week highs and six new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 34 new highs and 50 new lows.