Dow Jumps Over 250 Points; Fed's Key Inflation Gauge Remains Hot

U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Dow Jones index gaining more than 250 points on Friday.

The Dow traded up 0.58% to 46,213.26 while the NASDAQ rose 0.31% to 22,455.17. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 0.47% to 6,636.07.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Energy shares jumped by 1% on Friday.

In trading on Friday, consumer staples stocks fell by 0.3%.

Top Headline

The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge showed no signs of cooling in August, remaining stubbornly high and reigniting questions over whether the market’s aggressive rate-cut bets are truly justified.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — the Fed’s go-to inflation metric — rose 2.7% on a year-over-year basis in August, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

That was slightly above July’s 2.6% and marked the highest reading since February 2025. Monthly PCE inflation accelerated to 0.3%, from 0.2% in July.

Equities Trading UP
           

• MEDIROM Healthcare Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: MRM) shares shot up 155% to $3.74 after the company announced plans to complete the deployment of Orb across 100 of its Japanese relaxation studios and expand across 200 locations. The company announced it joined “World,” a “proof of human” protocol co-founded by Sam Altman and Tools for Humanity’s CEO, Alex Blania.
• Shares of bioAffinity Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIAF) got a boost, surging 92% to $6.57 after the company announced that it released three additional case studies, with one case study demonstrating that CyPath Lung led to detecting Stage 1A lung cancer.
• Datavault AI Inc. (NASDAQ: DVLT) shares were also up, gaining 50% to $1.2510 after securing $150 million investment in Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) to build a supercomputer.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Pop Culture Group Co., Ltd (NASDAQ: CPOP) shares dropped 52% to $0.9802 after the company entered a registered direct offering to sell 5 million shares at $1.20 per share.
• Shares of Kuke Music Holding Limited (NYSE: KUKE) were down 31% to $0.8111. Kuke Music acquired a controlling interest in Naxos Music Group.
• Lexaria Bioscience Corp. (NASDAQ: LEXX) was down, falling 27% to $1.11 after the company announced it price its $4 million registered direct offering at $1.50 per share with $1.34 warrants in a concurrent private placement.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.7% to $65.44 while gold traded up 0.5% at $3,789.00.

Silver traded up 1.4% to $45.725 on Friday, while copper fell 0.7% to $4.7240.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 gained 0.8%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 1.1%. London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.8%, Germany’s DAX 40 gained 0.8% and France’s CAC 40 climbed 0.9% during the session.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 falling 0.87%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declining 1.35%, China’s Shanghai Composite falling 0.65% and India’s BSE Sensex falling 0.90%.

Economics

• Personal spending in the U.S. rose by 0.6% month-over-month to $21.112 trillion in August, up from 0.5% in the previous month and above market estimates of 0.5%.
• U.S. personal income rose by 0.4% month-over-month to $26.280 trillion in August, the same pace as in the previous month and above market expectations of a 0.3% gain.
• The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — the Fed’s go-to inflation metric — rose 2.7% on a year-over-year basis in August, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. That was slightly above July’s 2.6% and marked the highest reading since February 2025. Monthly PCE inflation accelerated to 0.3%, from 0.2% in July.

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