Joey Solitro
Stocks opened and closed in positive territory, though the path to the finish line was choppy. A mixed reading on wholesale inflation pressured the main benchmarks throughout the morning, but a rally in several mega-cap stocks lifted them higher in afternoon trading.
Ahead of the open, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures what businesses are paying suppliers for goods, increased 0.2% month-over-month in August. Year-over-year, headline PPI was up 1.7% – the slowest pace since February.
Core PPI, which excludes food, energy and trade services, was up 0.3% on a monthly basis and 3.3% year-over-year. While the July-to-August increase matched what was seen the month prior, the annual rise was slightly higher.
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"Wholesale price growth slowed last month, and today's data is unlikely to impact the Fed's near-sure decision next week," says NerdWallet Senior Economist Elizabeth Renter. "A modest rate cut is all but certain, and consumers and businesses alike will welcome it with open arms."
According to CME Group's FedWatch Tool, futures traders are pricing in a 67% probability the Fed will cut rates by a quarter-percentage point next Wednesday. Odds of a half-percentage point cut are currently at 33%.
Microsoft moves on another round of job cuts
In single-stock news, Microsoft (MSFT) rose 0.9% after a leaked internal memo indicated that the technology giant is eliminating another 650 positions in its Xbox gaming unit. This marks the third round of layoffs in the division since Microsoft bought video game maker Activision Blizzard in 2023.
Fellow Magnificent 7 stocks Alphabet (GOOGL, +2.3%) and Meta Platforms (META, +2.7%) also drew attention Thursday after a report from Janus Henderson Global Dividend Index showed U.S. dividend payouts were up 8.6% in the second quarter. The two mega-cap communication services stocks "made a significant contribution to this growth, boosting the U.S. underlying total by 3.6 percentage points," the report indicated.
Moderna plunges after cutting R&D spending
Elsewhere, Moderna (MRNA) plunged 12.4% – making it the worst S&P 500 stock today – after the COVID-19 vaccine maker slashed its research and development budget to focus on new product approvals. The company also provided its 2025 revenue outlook, which came in below analysts' expectations.
The healthcare stock is now down nearly 30% for the year to date, but there are plenty of bulls to be found. Indeed, Argus Research analyst Jasper Hellweg (Buy) has a Buy rating on MRNA and says this technical weakness creates a buying opportunity.
Micron sinks after double downgrade
Micron Technology (MU) was another notable decliner, sinking 3.8% after Exane BNP Paribas analyst Karl Ackerman issued a rare double downgrade on the semiconductor stock, to Underperform from Outperform (the equivalents of Sell and Buy, respectively).
Ackerman expects MU to underperform its artificial intelligence (AI) peers over the next year or so amid "an oversupply of high bandwidth memory" chips, which he believes will lead "to a faster-than-expected correction in DRAM selling prices."
Shares of the memory chipmaker had a red-hot start to 2024 and had more than doubled in value on a year-to-date basis as of mid-June. Since then, though, MU stock has plunged 43% on uncertainty around artificial intelligence (AI) spending.
Ackerman also cut his price target on Micron, to $67 from $73. For reference, MU closed today at $87.21.
As for the major indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6% to 41,096, the S&P 500 added 0.8% to 5,595, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.0% to 17,569.
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