Stock market today: Tech leads rebound as traders move on from CPI and brace for earnings

• US stocks rose on Thursday as traders moved on from the hot CPI report and turned to earnings season.
• JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup will be turning in their first-quarter earnings report cards on Friday.
• Tech led the rebound in Thursday’s trading session, with the Nasdaq rising by 1.7%. 

US stocks on Thursday recovered some losses from Wednesday’s sharp sell-off as traders tried to shake off the hot March inflation report and geared up for earnings season. 

On Friday, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup will be turning in their first-quarter report cards, kicking off a new season of corporate earnings. 

Tech stocks rocketed higher in Thursday’s session. Nvidia soared over 4%, Google’s parent company Alphabet flirted with a $2 trillion market cap, and Amazon hit its highest point since 2021. Meanwhile, Apple‘s revamping its entire Mac lineup to supercharge sales, with the stock rising more than 4%. 

On the rate cut front, despite the newly released producer price index coming in softer than Wall Street expected, the market is still pushing out forecasts for when the Federal Reserve could start to loosen monetary policy. 

New York Fed President John Williams said during an event Thursday that “there’s no clear need to adjust monetary policy in the very near term,” while Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin doubts inflation’s easing trend will persist.

Economists from Deutsche Bank and Bank of America have pushed back their rate-cut timelines to December after the hot inflation data, a notable shift from previous calls for the first cut to arrive in June. 

Andrew Slimmon, senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said on CNBC on Thursday that investors are highly focused on the rate cuts while overlooking the potential for robust company earnings to drive the market even higher.

“We’re so fixated on the macro issues that people have forgotten that earnings are around the corner. And then there are blackout windows, where companies can buy back stocks, and that’s a big driver of the market,” he said.

Here’s where US indexes stood at the 4 p.m. closing bell on Thursday: 

• S&P 500: 5,199.06, up 0.74% 

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 38,459.08, down 0.01% (-2.43 points)

• Nasdaq Composite: 16,442.20, up 1.68% 

Here’s what else is going on:

• Investors should immediately buy the stock market’s post-CPI dip with a June rate cut still on the table, Fundstrat says.
• The stock market’s best-case interest rate scenario is in tatters after March CPI.
• There are two reasons Apple’s stock still has 25% upside despite struggling to start 2024, according to JPMorgan.
• The inflation fight has stalled and the first rate cut won’t happen until December, Bank of America says.

In commodities, bonds, and crypto: 

• West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell by 0.72% to $85.59 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 0.25% to $90.25 a barrel. 
• Gold rose 1.54% to $2,369.04 per ounce. 
• The 10-year Treasury yield inched slightly higher to 4.578%.
• Bitcoin dipped 0.18% to $70,575.9.