Stock market today: Alphabet and Microsoft push Wall Street towards its first winning week in a month

NEW YORK (AP) Alphabet and Microsoft lead the U.S. stock market Friday toward the end of its first winning week in the last four weeks.

The S&P 500 was up 1.1% in morning trading and on track for its best week since November. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 130 points, or 0.3%, as of 10:55 a.m. Eastern Time, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 2.1%.

Alphabet jumped 10.1% after beating analysts' profit expectations last quarter. Google's parent company also announced it would begin paying dividends to investors and authorized a stock buyback program of up to $70 billion, a sign of how much cash it is generating.

Microsoft, meanwhile, climbed 2.7% after reporting higher-than-expected profits and revenue. The company cited strong growth in its cloud computing business as it offers artificial intelligence technology to its customers.

They helped offset a 10.8% drop for Intel. It reported higher-than-expected profit for the latest quarter, but its revenue fell short of analysts' estimates. So did its earnings forecast for the current quarter.

Stocks have been broadly under pressure this month as hopes for multiple interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve this year faded. A series of reports this year showing inflation remains worse than expected has traders expecting a possible decline this year, down from six or more forecasts earlier this year.

Another report released Friday showed inflation remained stubbornly high. This time, it is the March price measure that the Federal Reserve prefers to use, but it is not much worse than forecasts. Financial markets took it much more readily than a report the day before suggesting the same measure of inflation had risen rapidly from January to March.

Treasury yields eased in the bond market after Friday morning's report. The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.65% from 4.71% Thursday evening.

Although inflation remained higher than expected, Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY, expects it to ease in the coming months as buyers come under pressure partly from slowing growth. wages, they slow down their purchases, which are the fuel that fuels inflation.

Consumers remain willing to spend, but not on anything or at any price, he added.

Economists also said Thursday's weaker-than-expected readings for the overall U.S. economy, which helped send stocks lower, may not be as bad as it first appeared.

The economy remains on solid footing, Bank of America economists said in a report, highlighting U.S. customers' purchasing trends. Such an interpretation helps ease concerns that the U.S. economy could be heading toward a toxic mix of stagnant growth and high inflation, a problem the Federal Reserve has few tools to remedy.

Still, the higher-than-expected inflation numbers will likely keep the Fed on hold at its next policy meeting on Wednesday. Its main interest rate is at the highest since 2001 in hopes of curbing inflation by putting downward pressure on the economy and financial markets.

After earlier indicating that three interest rate cuts could be considered this year, senior Fed officials have since said they may keep its main interest rate high for a while to ensure that inflation is falling towards its 2% target.

Friday's report on persistent inflation underscores Vanguards' belief that the Federal Reserve may find itself unable to cut interest rates this year, according to the investment giant's global head of portfolio construction, Roger Aliaga-Diaz.

In overseas stock markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 0.8% after the Bank of Japan ended a policy meeting without a major change in interest rates. Indexes were higher across much of the rest of Asia and Europe.

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AP Business Editor Yuri Kageyama contributed.