Investing.com — The S&P 500 closed Friday led by technology as stocks continued their recovery after a big sell-off earlier this week as concerns about a coming recession took center stage.
At 4:00 PM ET (20:00 GMT), the index rose 51 points, or 0.1%, climbed 0.5% and gained 0.5%. On Monday, the S&P 500 fell 3%, marking its worst day since 2022, as the fallout from weaker July payrolls data sparked recession fears, which eased as the week progressed on positive economic data.
CPI data looms after a volatile week
Wall Street has few major signals left to act on as the week draws to a close, so attention now turns to key inflation data coming next week.
This reading comes against the backdrop of increased belief that US inflation is easing and will give the Federal Reserve enough confidence to start cutting rates from September.
Recent fears of a recession led traders to bet that rates would be cut by as much as 50 basis points next month, compared to previous expectations for a 25 basis point cut.
Paramount Global Rises After Job Cuts Announced
There are few major corporate profits scheduled for Friday, but a number of companies have released figures after the close Thursday for investors to digest.
Shares of Paramount Global (NASDAQ:) rose 0.9% after the entertainment company beat Wall Street profit expectations and its streaming business reported its first quarterly profit in three years, while announcing it would cut 15% of its U.S. workforce in a attempt to reduce costs.
“TV Media faces a tough third quarter, but sports/politics/licensing should help in Q4,” UBS said in a recent note.
Expedia.com (NASDAQ:) Shares rose more than 10% after the online travel company beat quarterly expectations even after warning of a slowdown in travel demand in July.
In contrast, Array Technologies (NASDAQ:) fell more than 19% after the solar energy technology maker lowered its annual guidance.
Shares of ELF Beauty (NYSE:) fell more than 21% after the cosmetics company issued cautious guidance even as it raised annual revenue and profit forecasts after beating first-quarter expectations.
(Peter Nurse, Ambar Warrick contributed to this article.)
