Stocks Stay Near Record Highs

Wall Street coasted to the finish of its best week in the past five on Friday as US stocks stayed near their record levels.

• The Dow fell 273.78 points, or 0.6%, to 45,834.22, closing the week up 1%.
• The S&P 500 fell 3.18 points, or less than 0.1%, to 6,584.29, finishing 1.6% higher for the week.
• The Nasdaq rose 98.03 points, or 0.4%, to 22,141.10, up 2% for the week.

Stocks have rallied with expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at its meeting next week. Such a move would give the economy a kickstart, and mortgage rates have already dropped in anticipation of it, the AP reports.

Expectations for a cut have built as recent reports suggested the job market could settle into the precise balance that Wall Street has been betting on: slow enough to convince the Fed that it needs help, but not so weak that it will mean a recession, all while inflation doesn't take off. A lot is riding on whether that bet proves correct. Stocks have soared on it. And if the Fed ends up cutting interest rates fewer times than traders expect, including three this year, the market could retreat in disappointment. That's even if everything else goes right, and the economy does not fall into a recession and President Trump's tariffs don't send inflation much higher. Investors, "and I think the Fed, are convinced that we are not on the verge of a surge in inflation," said Scott Wren of Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

In the meantime, Wall Street drifted around its record heights. RH fell 4.6% after the furniture retailer reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that came up short of analysts' expectations. It also trimmed its range forecast for revenue this fiscal year over what CEO Gary Friedman called "the polarizing impact of tariff uncertainty and the worst housing market in almost 50 years." Oracle sank 5.1% and was the single heaviest weight on the S&P 500 index. But that shaved only a bit off its surge from earlier in the week, when it soared to its best day since 1992 amid excitement about its winning multibillion-dollar contracts related to artificial intelligence. Super Micro Computer rose 2.4% after saying it's begun high-volume shipments of racks using Blackwell Ultra equipment from Nvidia that can be used for AI. Microsoft climbed 1.8%.