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Thursday’s report kept intact hopes that the Federal Reserve may begin cutting interest rates in June. Such a move would relax the pressure on the economy and boost investment prices, and the Fed has indicated several cuts may be coming this year.

The Fed’s main interest rate is sitting at its highest level since 2001 in hopes of grinding down inflation by dragging on the economy through more expensive mortgage and credit-card payments. Hopes for coming cuts to rates helped launch the US stock market’s big rally in late October, and the S&P 500 just closed its fourth straight winning month.

Relief on rates, though, would come only if the Fed sees additional convincing data that inflation is sustainably heading down toward its target of 2 per cent.

Traders have recently been pushing back forecasts for when the Fed may begin cutting rates. A series of strong reports on the economy have pushed expectations out from March. On Thursday, another report showed fewer US workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest signal of a remarkably resilient job market.

In the meantime, the hope is that a solid economy will fuel growth in profits for US companies, even if it means a delay to rate cuts.

Salesforce.com became one of the latest companies to report better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected on Wednesday evening. The customer-resource management software company also said it plans to begin paying a quarterly dividend to its investors, but it gave a forecast for revenue this upcoming year that was a bit below analysts’ expectations. Its stock climbed 3 per cent after flipping between gains and losses in the morning.

Hormel Foods led the S&P 500 with a 14.6 per cent leap after it reported stronger profit and revenue than expected. It cited broad-based growth across its brands, including Skippy peanut butter, Chi-Chi’s salsa and Corn Nuts snacks.

Nvidia climbed 1.9 per cent to recover losses from a back-to-back drop, a rare blip in what’s been a monster run amid Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. Because it’s one of the biggest stocks on Wall Street, Nvidia was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.

C3.ai jumped 24.5 per cent after the software company reported a smaller loss than analysts expected and stronger revenue

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In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.25 per cent from 4.27 per cent late Wednesday.

The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, dipped to 4.63 per cent from 4.65 per cent. It had been near 4.70 per cent shortly before the morning’s release of the inflation data.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 dipped 0.1 per cent after data showed factory output falling in January at the fastest pace since May 2020, though retail sales were stronger than expected.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.2 per cent, while stocks in Shanghai jumped 1.9 per cent. The smaller index in Shenzhen surged even more after regulators released new measures to support markets including closer oversight of financial derivatives.

With AP

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