U.S. stocks rose a second-straight day and notched an intraday all-time high on Friday as President Donald Trump said the U.S. has made a number of trade deals while economic data stoked bets on Federal Reserve policy easing.
The S&P 500 Index rose 0.7% at 12:47 p.m. in New York after the gauge closed on the cusp of a record in the previous session. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index advanced by a similar margin.
Trump said during a midday briefing that his administration made agreements with “probably four or five different countries,” naming those with China and the U.K. He also said the July 9 tariff deadline could be extended or shortened.
Earlier in the day, China further confirmed details of a trade framework with Washington, echoing US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s earlier comments about a US-China agreement that stabilized ties.
Meantime, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business Network that the Trump administration could ink about a dozen trade deals and have trade “wrapped up” by the Labour Day holiday in early September.
In economic data, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE price index minus food and energy, rose 0.2% — slightly more than expected.
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said he sees two interest-rate cuts as likely this year — with the first potentially in September — but warned that tariffs could have a delayed impact on inflation and policymakers should remain flexible.
“Friday’s stronger-than-expected PCE is a reversal from the past few months of softening inflation data, and it suggests that higher prices from tariffs may be starting to work their way through the economy,” said Robert Ruggirello, chief investment officer at Brave Eagle Wealth Management, in an email. “While one month does not make a trend, if we were to see another few months of escalating inflation data, it could push the Federal Reserve to continue its rate cut pause into 2026.”
If the gains hold, the S&P 500 will reach its first record close since Feb. 19, after narrowly missing the milestone Thursday. US stocks have made a stunning recovery from the throes of April’s tariff turmoil, adding almost $10 trillion in value after teetering on the cusp of a bear market just two months ago.
A “pivot from tariffs to tax cuts/rate cut” could lead to a high risk of a bubble in the second half of the year, according to Bank of America Corp.’s Michael Hartnett.
This year already, U.S. equities took in $164 billion of inflows, on course for the third-largest annual allocation in history, the note from BofA said, citing data from EPFR Global.
With earnings season just weeks away, the foundation of the rally is about to get a major test. Wall Street sees profit growth of 2.8% year-over-year for the second quarter for the benchmark, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. That would be the smallest jump in two years.
In individual names, Amazon Inc. led gains in the Magnificent Seven cohort of U.S. tech stocks, rising after receiving an upgrade from BNP Paribas Exane. Shares of Nike Inc. climbed after forecasting a smaller-than-expected drop in revenue for the current quarter, a sign to some Wall Street analysts that the sportswear company’s earnings trend may have hit an inflection point.
—With assistance from Natalia Kniazhevich, Julien Ponthus and Michael Msika.