Wall Street Is Happy to See August Go

Stocks ended mixed on Wall Street on Thursday, closing out what has been a rough August.

• The Dow fell 169 points, or 0.4%, to 34,721.
• The S&P 500 ticked down 7 points, or 0.1%, to 4,507.
• The Nasdaq rose 15 points, or 0.1%, to 14,034.
• CNBC notes that all three are down more than 1% for the month.

Technology and communications stocks notched some of the biggest gains on the day, per the AP. Software company Salesforce rose 3.4% after raising its profit forecast for the year, and cloud-based security company CrowdStrike jumped 8.8% after reporting strong financial results. Dollar General was among several retailers slipping after reporting weak earnings and forecasts. It slumped 12.5% after cutting its profit forecast for the year. Meanwhile, the government reported that a measure of inflation closely tracked by the Federal Reserve remained low in July. The latest update for personal consumption and expenditures, or the PCE report, is the latest sign that price increases are cooling. Investors are hoping the Fed may be close to done raising interest rates.

Wall Street has one more big economic update to look forward to this week. On Friday, the government will report employment data for August. The strong job market, along with consumer spending, has so far helped thwart a recession that analysts expected at some point in 2023. But they also made the Fed's task of taming inflation more difficult by fueling wage and price increases.

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