U.S. stocks climbed Friday, ending a four-session skid, as easing oil prices and resilient investor sentiment overcame a consumer inflation reading that strengthened the case for a Federal Reserve rate hike. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 622 points, or 1.2%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite each gained 1.1%.
The Dow had not suffered a comparable run of consecutive losses since late April.
WTI crude settled 3% lower at $99.28 a barrel, while Brent crude ended the session down 3.1% at $104.32 a barrel. Despite the day's losses, each benchmark was still tracking a weekly advance of roughly 8%, reflecting the week's geopolitical pressures in the Middle East.
The consumer price index rose 0.4% in August from the prior month and 3.4% from a year earlier. The core reading, which strips out food and energy costs, came in at 0.3%, a touch hotter than analysts had anticipated, according to CNBC. The annual headline figure matched what economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal had forecast.
Bond yields were mixed after the report. The 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.92% following the data, while the more policy-sensitive 2-year yield climbed to its loftiest level since July 2024. Traders pricing Fed futures through the CME Group's FedWatch tool assigned an 85.6% likelihood to a quarter-point increase at the central bank's meeting next week.