US Stocks Rise on Smaller-than-Expected Inflation and AI Boost for Alphabet’s Search Engine

(Reuters) – The Standard & Poor’s and the Nasdaq rose on Wednesday, helped by a slightly smaller-than-expected rise in inflation in April and Alphabet’s use of the latest artificial intelligence tools in its search engine.

The Consumer Price Index released by the Labor Department rose 4.9 percent in April from a year earlier, compared to an expected increase of 5 percent, raising hopes that the Federal Reserve is close to ending the rate-raising cycle it began more than a year ago. On a monthly basis in April, the consumer price index rose 0.4 percent, after rising 0.1 percent in March.

Lower-than-expected inflation data boosted the Nasdaq Composite Index, rising 1.17 percent to Wednesday’s highest level in more than eight months.

And helped the Nasdaq to climb higher shares of Alphabet after the company used more artificial intelligence tools in its main search product in response to its competitor Microsoft (NASDAQ:).

According to preliminary data, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose by 17.93 points, or 0.44 percent, to close at 4,137.10 points, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 124.68 points, or 1.04 percent, to 12,304.23 points. On the other hand, the industrial index fell 33.45 points, or 0.10 percent, to 33,528.36 points.

(Prepared by Muhammad Harfush for the Arabic Bulletin – Edited by Ali Khafaji)