Stocks opened higher Wednesday and kept climbing into the close as market participants cheered encouraging inflation news. A strong rally in several large- and mega-cap tech stocks created tailwinds, too, with the three main indexes notching record highs.
Wall Street was anxiously awaiting this morning's release of the April Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the data did not disappoint. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said headline CPI was up 0.4% month-to-month and 3.4% year-over-year in April, lower than what was seen in March.
Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also eased from the month prior, with the annual 3.6% increase the smallest since April 2021.
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The April CPI report was "welcome news after the hot prints in the first quarter," says Gianmaria Feleppa, market expert and CEO of UCapital Fintech Group. While it looks like "the soft-landing scenario for the economy continues to play out," the decline in the inflation data is not enough to indicate the Fed will start cutting rates soon, he adds.
Feleppa calls expectations for a September interest rate cut "overly optimistic" and says "the market should listen" to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell when he says he "expects rates to stay higher for longer."
3M halves its dividend
In single-stock news, 3M (MMM) rose 1.2% after the Post-It maker slashed its quarterly dividend payment to 70 cents from $1.51 per share.
The move has been anticipated for weeks after the company readjusted its dividend payout ratio following the spinoff of its Solventum (SOLV, -4.1%) healthcare business. Additionally, it was "smaller than feared," said UBS Global Research analyst Damian Karas (Neutral, the equivalent of Hold).
3M's announcement snaps the company's 64-year streak of hiking its dividend and kicks it out of the Dividend Aristocrats. MMM has long been a member of this group of the best dividend stocks for dependable growth in the S&P 500 that have raised their payouts for 25 straight years.
Dell pops on upbeat analyst note
Elsewhere, Dell (DELL) shot up 11.2% after Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring lifted his price target on the computer company to $152, matching the highest outlook on Wall Street.
The analyst says that demand for Dell's artificial intelligence (AI) server storage and services could boost fiscal 2025 earnings to $8 per share and fiscal 2026 earnings to $10.12 per share. By comparison, Dell disclosed fiscal 2024 earnings of $7.13 per share in late February.
Woodring says that Dell remains a top pick, and points to the company's late-May turn on the earnings calendar and expectations it will eventually be added to the S&P 500 as potential catalysts.
Dell was hardly the only tech stock rallying today. Mega-cap chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) jumped 3.6%, while Super Micro Computer (SMCI) – a recent addition to the S&P 500 – spiked 15.8%.
As for the main indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.9% to 39,908, the S&P 500 rose 1.2% to 5,308, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.4% to 16,742. All three benchmarks ended the day at new record closes.
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