S&P 500 Hits Record as Bonds Fall Before Inflation: Markets Wrap

(Bloomberg) — Stocks hit all-time highs on hopes the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates to curb a jobs downturn, with traders gearing up for inflation data that will test the market’s conviction.

While most shares in the S&P 500 fell, the gauge rose amid gains in all big techs but Apple Inc. – which sank 1.5% after introducing its iPhone 17, including an already expected skinnier model. In late hours, Oracle Corp. surged after posting a huge jump in bookings. A slide in bonds halted a four-day rally. Oil climbed after an Israeli attack in Qatar revived fears of an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.

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In the wake of more data showing labor-market cooling, investors geared up for key inflation figures due in the next couple of days. The reports will help set the tone for next week’s Fed meeting as well as the scope of easing through the end of 2025. And that will certainly determine whether Wall Street can extend this month’s gains.

With money markets almost fully projecting three Fed cuts this year, the bar is high for both the producer and the consumer price indexes. A worse-than-expected inflation increase would complicate policy decisions at a time when pressure is mounting to provide economic relief through lower rates, according to Stephen Kates at Bankrate.

“It is clear the economy is caught between a rock and a hard place – or more accurately, between a labor shock and a hot pace,” he said.

To Chris Zaccarelli at Northlight Asset Management, while a deteriorating jobs picture should make it easier for the Fed to cut rates, it could also throw some cold water on the recent market rally.

“Worse still, if the CPI shows a worsening trend of higher inflation on Thursday then the market will begin worrying about ‘stagflation’.”

The most relevant question now becomes the extent to which the August inflation data will reshape the market’s expectations for the Fed’s decision next week, according to Ian Lyngen and Vail Hartman at BMO Capital Markets.

“The Fed is cutting 25 basis points – barring a far more dramatic downshift in the trajectory of realized inflation, in which case a half-point cut could be on the table,” they said. “We’re solidly in the quarter-point camp and view the August inflation update as more meaningful for the conversations about where the Fed cutting cycle ends, not how it begins.”

In the run-up to the inflation reports, government data showed US job growth was far less robust in the year through March than previously reported. The number of workers on payrolls will likely be revised down by a record 911,000, or 0.6%, according to the preliminary benchmark revision out Tuesday. The final figures are due early next year.

US INSIGHT: Jobs Revised Down by 911,000 — In One Chart

Jamie Dimon said the record revision to US payrolls data is further proof that the US economy is battling a slowdown.

“The economy is weakening,” the JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive officer said in an interview with CNBC Tuesday. “Whether that is on the way to recession or just weakening, I don’t know.”

A deteriorating labor market will allow the Fed to highlight the need to ease rates, said Jeff Roach at LPL Financial, who says investors should expect the Fed to officially resume its rate-cutting campaign at the next meeting.

“For now we assume a modest net dovish impact: firming some the likelihood of three successive cuts in September, October and December without making this anything close to a lock,” said Krishna Guha at Evercore.

To Gary Schlossberg at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, weakening job growth, underscored by Tuesday’s report, should be viewed against support from ample market liquidity, the rally in stocks and the Fed’s prospective rate cuts in pointing toward an economic “soft patch” rather than a sustained economic slowdown.

“The shallow growth slowdown that we are anticipating is fully consistent with our recommended tilt toward more liquid, large-cap stocks and other higher-quality sectors of the financial market, as the economy navigates a period of slowing growth ahead of a forecasted recovery in 2026,” he said.

A quarter-point interest-rate cut by the Fed next week would be the most-favorable scenario for financial assets, with a deeper reduction running the risk of alarming investors, according to Charles Schwab Corp.’s Omar Aguilar.

If policymakers keep borrowing costs unchanged, Wall Street will likely react “fairly negatively” given a rate reduction is all but priced in, the CEO and CIO of Schwab Asset Management said at the Future Proof conference in Huntington Beach, California. If the Fed goes big — cutting interest rates by 50 basis points — investors could perceive that as a sign the economy is in trouble.

US PREVIEW: PPI to Show Accelerating Airfares, Stock Rally

The government will release its latest consumer price index ahead of the Fed’s Sept. 16-17 policy meeting. Core CPI, a measure of underlying inflation excluding food and fuel, probably rose 0.3% in August for a second month, according to the Bloomberg survey median estimate.

Economists will parse the extent to which higher US import duties are filtering through to consumers. So far, many companies have made an effort to refrain from hiking prices in order to maintain sales.

Options traders are betting the S&P 500 will post a modest swing on Thursday following the CPI report, with a projected move of nearly 0.6% in either direction, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s well below an average realized move of 1% over the past year.

“Given the recent softness in the labor market data, even if we were to see elevated inflation data this week, we still think the Fed would cut rates next week,” said Chris Kampitsis at Barnum Financial Group. The Fed is likely more focused on the employment market rather than inflation at this time.”

Corporate Highlights:

Nvidia Corp., whose chips and systems are at the heart of the artificial intelligence computing boom, said it plans to offer a new product designed to handle demanding tasks such as video generation and software creation. Alphabet Inc.’s Google cloud computing division has up to $106 billion in commitments from existing customer contracts that it has yet to fulfill, according to the division’s Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Kurian. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s third-quarter trading revenue could climb by a percentage in the “high teens” from a year earlier, well ahead of the 8.2% jump analysts currently expect. Boeing Co. delivered 57 commercial aircraft in August, its best performance for the month since 2018, in the latest sign of steadying factory operations as the US planemaker targets faster production rates. United Airlines Holdings Inc. said corporate travel has bounced back from a dip earlier in the year, with signs that the trend will continue through the rest of 2025. UnitedHealth Group Inc. said it expects most of its Medicare Advantage members to be in highly rated plans that earn bonus payments next year, a boon for its health insurance business. Humana Inc. shares dropped after reports suggested that criteria for Medicare health plans to earn bonus payments appeared to get more challenging. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc. said it’s suspending store remodels as the restaurant chain continues to walk back planned changes such as a new logo that hurt the shares. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. won a $40 billion mandate from Shell Plc to oversee pension assets for the energy company, in one of the biggest outsourced deals of its kind. Nebius Group NV shares soared on Tuesday after signing an artificial intelligence infrastructure deal worth as much as $19.4 billion with Microsoft Corp. Anglo American Plc has agreed to acquire Canada’s Teck Resources Ltd., creating a more than $50 billion company in one of the biggest mining deals in over a decade. American Express Co. grew its global merchant acceptance rate by more than 16% in the 12 months through June as it continues to invest in the domestic and international network of places that accept its credit cards. Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. are bullish on China’s future appetite for liquefied natural gas even if Russia succeeds in adding another pipeline to the Asian nation. Lazard Inc. is aiming to station half a dozen bankers in its newly-opened office in Abu Dhabi as part of Chief Executive Officer Peter Orszag’s yearslong plan to double the firm’s revenue. Airbus SE can achieve its aircraft delivery target for the year, though handing over 820 planes depends on receiving engines that remain difficult to source, Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury said. Novartis AG agreed to buy Tourmaline Bio Inc. in a deal valued at about $1.4 billion as the Swiss drugmaker continues to pursue bolt-on deals to boost its drug pipeline. Kering SA’s incoming chief executive officer vowed to slash debt and cut costs in a bid to revive the struggling luxury owner of Gucci. What Bloomberg Strategists say…

“While equities have held steady on rising hopes for rate cuts, such support can only go so far in obscuring the deteriorating underlying reality. This time, rate cuts have the whiff of unease rather than relief.”

—Tatiana Darie, Macro Strategist, Markets Live. For the full analysis, click here.

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% as of 4 p.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.3% The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4% The MSCI World Index rose 0.2% Bloomberg Magnificent 7 Total Return Index rose 0.8% The Russell 2000 Index fell 0.5% Apple fell 1.5% Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.2% The euro fell 0.5% to $1.1707 The British pound fell 0.2% to $1.3519 The Japanese yen was little changed at 147.45 per dollar Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin fell 0.6% to $111,325.45 Ether was little changed at $4,294.59 Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced four basis points to 4.08% Germany’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 2.66% Britain’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 4.62% The yield on 2-year Treasuries advanced six basis points to 3.55% The yield on 30-year Treasuries advanced three basis points to 4.72% Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.6% to $62.65 a barrel Spot gold fell 0.2% to $3,629.94 an ounce ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.