US stocks stage smart recovery after sticky inflation print for August; NASDAQ 100 surges 1%

The US stock markets staged a smart recovery on Friday after CPI inflation remained largely unchanged at 3.4%. The Dow Jones soared over 500 points, and the S&P 500 rose 0.8% as Treasury yields fell below 4.934%, though maintain the three-year high levels.. Meanwhile, the NASDAQ 100 soared over 1% amid buying in tech stocks.

Crude oil prices staged a technical pullback on Friday, paring back the majority of the gains made on Thursday. The Brent crude oil futures pulled back below the $105 per barrel level, after hitting $110 per barrel in the intraday session. WTI crude oil prices fell below the $100 per barrel mark after hitting $104 per barrel in the intraday session.

US CPI inflation

The annual inflation rate for the US economy remained stubborn at 3.4% for August, unchanged from July and in line with the forecasts. Gasoline prices surged 27.4% YoY, slightly more than the surge in July at 24.6%. The gasoline price increase contributed to 1/3rd increase in inflation. However, natural gas (-1.1%) and electricity (-0.2%) negated the rise.

At the stock-specific level, the shares of Apple Inc. were among the top gainers after the company launched new products at the Apple Day event on September 9. The company now trades at $4.9 trillion market capitalisation, second to Nvidia, which was also up 0.8% on Friday.

Among the megacaps, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, and Meta Platforms gained as much as 2% amid renewed interest in the hyperscalers after US yields fell on Friday. Meanwhile, chip stocks like Intel Corporation, AMD, Cisco Systems, and Nvidia surged as much as 3.4% on Friday, leading the pull back in the NASDAQ index from lower levels.