by Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange ended higher on Wednesday, with the Nasdaq rising more than 1%, after the release of the report on consumer prices in the United States showed their smallest increase in annual rate for more than two years, confirming the slowdown in inflation.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.25%, or 86.01 points, to 34,347.43 points.

The broader S&P-500 gained 32.90 points, or 0.74%, to 4,472.16 points.

The Nasdaq Composite advanced for its part by 158.26 points (1.15%) to 13,918.96 points.

This inflation data is fueling speculation that the US Federal Reserve (Fed) may be done with its monetary tightening cycle after another 25 basis point hike expected later this month.

Particularly sensitive to high interest rates, high-growth stocks recorded gains during the session and greatly contributed to the performance of the S&P-500. The technology sector gained 1.3%.

“People mostly expected a lower consumer price index, and that’s exactly what we got,” said Michael James, chief trading officer at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.

While several major US banks will kick off the unofficial earnings season this weekend, with expected higher sales figures for them, the S&P-500 banking index rose 0.6%. .

On the stock side, among notable moves, Nvidia rose 3.5% after the Financial Times, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that semiconductor designer Arm was leading talks to make the industry giant its lead investor with a view to its IPO.

While he obtained the approval of the European competition authority to buy VMware for 61 billion dollars, Broadcom ended up up 0.9%. The title VMware took 2.8%.

( Jean Terzian)

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