Stocks Up On Friday And For The Week, Earnings Season Kicks Into Gear This Week  Image: Bigstock Stocks closed higher on Friday and for the week. And with one more trading day to go, the major indexes are all poised to close higher for the month. That would make it 5 months in a row for the S&P and Nasdaq, and 4 out of the last 5 months for the Dow. Last week's FOMC announcement went off as expected. The Fed raised rates by 25 basis points. They said they had not yet made a decision on what they'll do at their next meeting on September 20th. And that they remain data dependent. They remarked how resilient the economy was. Acknowledged that inflation has come down. While still too high, their outlook was for inflation to continue to ease throughout the rest of the year, next year, and into 2025. Regardless of what the Fed does in September, it's clear that we are nearing the end of the rate hike cycle, if we haven't reached it already. Last week also saw the first print of Q2 GDP come in much better than expected at 2.4% vs. the consensus for 1.5% and Q1's 2.0%. And last Friday's Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index showed inflation continuing to ease. The headline number was up 0.2% m/m as expected, while the y/y rate was up 3.0%, in line with expectations and down from last month's 3.8%. The core rate (ex-food & energy), also rose 0.2% m/m as expected, while the y/y rate came in at 4.1%, beating expectations for 4.2%, and last month's 4.6%. Traders cheered the news as each inflation report that shows inflation moderating, is one more data point to help the Fed call it quits. Granted, we've still got 2 more CPI inflation reports, 2 more PPI inflation reports, 1 more PCE inflation report, not to mention 2 more employment situation reports to get through before September's meeting. But every report counts. And Friday's report was another one in favor of pausing once again (and maybe for good). We also saw some big earnings beats last week, not the least of which came from Alphabet, Boeing, McDonald's, Intel and Meta to name a handful. Earnings season ramps up this this week with another 1,653 companies set to report, including marquee names like ON Semiconductor today; Starbucks and Uber on Tuesday; Novo-Nordisk and Qualcomm on Wednesday; mega-caps Apple and Amazon on Thursday; and Berkshire Hathaway on Friday. This year has been fantastic. And with recession fears seemingly off the table this year, earnings coming in better than expected, and the statistical trends all pointing to continued gains throughout the rest of the year, 2023 could very well be one for the record books. So make sure you're taking full advantage of it. See you tomorrow,  Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research | 
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