NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks rallied Tuesday to one of their best days of the year after the first of several highly anticipated reports on the economy this week came in better than expected.
The S&P 500 jumped 1.7% for its third-best day of 2024 after the U.S. government reported inflation at the wholesale level slowed last month by more than economists expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 408 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq composite clambered 2.3% higher.
High inflation has been the scourge of shoppers and financial markets for years. It finally looks to be slowing enough to get the Federal Reserve to ease up on high interest rates, which the Fed has been keeping at economy-crunching levels in order to stifle inflation.
Treasury yields eased in the bond market following the inflation data, as traders remain convinced the Fed’s meeting next month will bring the first cut to interest rates since the COVID crash of 2020. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 3.84% from 3.91% late Monday.
All is not clear, though. On Wednesday, the U.S. government will deliver the latest monthly update on inflation that U.S. consumers are feeling, which could be less encouraging. And on Thursday will come a report showing how much U.S. shoppers are spending at retailers.
A growing worry on Wall Street is that the Fed may have kept interest rates too high for too long and undercut the U.S. economy by making it so expensive to borrow money. The economy is still growing, and many economists don’t expect a recession, but a sharp slowdown in U.S. hiring last month raised questions about its strength.
Such questions weigh because even cuts to interest rates haven't been enough for stocks to rise significantly in the ensuing 18 months if a recession hits, according to Chris Haverland, global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
Home Depot on Tuesday delivered stronger profit for the spring quarter than analysts expected, but it also said high interest rates and uncertainty about the economy are keeping some customers from spending on home improvement projects.
The retail giant lowered its full-year forecasts for an important measure of sales and for profit, even though it topped expectations for the second quarter. Its stock rose 1.2% after flipping earlier between modest gains and losses.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Starbucks soared 24.5% after it convinced Brian Niccol to leave his job as CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill to take over the coffee chain. He will start as chairman and chief executive next month and will replace Laxman Narasimhan, who is stepping down immediately.
Chipotle, meanwhile, dropped 7.5%. Niccol has been its chief executive since 2018 and its chairman since 2020, and he helped its stock rise more than 240% for the five years through Monday. That tower’s over the S&P 500’s 96% return including dividends. Chipotle said its chief operating officer, Scott Boatwright, would be its interim CEO.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were modestly higher across much of Europe and Asia. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was an outlier and jumped 3.4%.
Japan’s market has been viciously volatile recently, including the worst drop for the Nikkei 225 since the Black Monday crash of 1987. It’s been swinging since a hike to interest rates by the Bank of Japan forced many hedge funds and other investors to abandon a popular trade all at once, where they had borrowed Japanese yen at cheap rates to invest elsewhere. The forced selling that followed the surge in the Japanese yen’s value reverberated around the world.
But a promise last week by a top Bank of Japan official not to raise rates further as long as markets are “unstable” has helped calm the market.
Another worry that’s made Wall Street so shaky the last month is concerns that investors went overboard in their mania around artificial-intelligence technology and took the prices of Big Tech and AI-related stocks too high.
Nvidia, the company whose chips are powering much of the move into AI, has been at the center of the action. After soaring more than 170% through the year’s first six and a half months, it plunged more than 20% over the ensuing three weeks.
On Tuesday, Nvidia rose 6.5% and was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500. All the other stocks in the small group known as the “Magnificent Seven” also climbed. They almost singlehandedly pushed the S&P 500 to dozens of all-time highs earlier this year, even as high interest rates weighed on much of the rest of the stock market.
Unlike much of the early part of this year, it wasn’t just the Magnificent Seven rising Tuesday. Wall Street’s rally was more widespread, and nearly 85% of the stocks in the S&P 500 rose. The smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index also climbed 1.6%.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 90.04 points to 5,434.43. The Dow added 408.63 to 39,765.64, and the Nasdaq composite gained 407.00 to 17,187.61.
AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed.
The New York Stock Exchange is shown on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders pass by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Joel Embiid is trying to believe in the good that can come from asking for help. Embiid’s career has yielded an MVP — and so many more DNPs — with a biography littered by the kind of devastating injuries that can, in time, heal.
Ask even the most casual 76ers fan, and they can rattle off a CliffsNotes version of Embiid’s injury timeline: The broken bones in his feet, the grotesque dislocated finger that made it resemble a used bendy drinking straw, the torn meniscus in his right knee, the torn ligament in a thumb, a bout with Bell’s palsy, and even his latest ailment — a busted sinus that compelled him to ask a media horde to cut the camera lights because of his sensitivity to the brightness beaming in his face.
Embiid played Friday night wearing a carbon graphite mask straight out of the “Phantom of the Opera” prop department. He needed the protection to save his face from another errant elbow, another sudden strike, that could thrust him into the kind of prolonged absence that has defined his star-crossed career.
With the 7-footer boasting a wingspan that could stretch a couple of Liberty Bells, his knack for knocking down spot-up 3s, Embiid's presence in the lineup is all that separates the Philadelphia 76ers from a playoff team and title contender to one drowning in the NBA standings.
He feels the burden. He understands the hardships.
Selected by the 76ers with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft, Embiid carries the weight of expectations of Philly — and beyond — with him, and the injuries that sidelined the 2023 MVP and have denied him a real shot at being heralded as one of the NBA's greats have led him to admit the cracks they formed in his mental health was something he could no longer ignore.
So the native of Cameroon who once never believed in seeking help from others had decided over time — much like elite athletes Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and retired swimmer Michael Phelps — to shake the once-taboo stigma of therapy and go all-in on the process to steer him through turbulent times in his professional career.
“It's kind of hard when you get in those moments where it's kind of hard not to feel bad about yourself, especially when you know who you are and what you can accomplish but it's not the way it is,” Embiid said. “One lesson that I learned is to try and stop feeling bad about myself and just live day-by-day. Enjoy good people around me, positivity and not focus on the negativity.”
Embiid has openly talked at times over the last year of feeling depressed from time on the shelf — he was sidelined for two full NBA seasons, and had chunks of so many others recovering, rehabbing, even resting — and this season was no different.
Embiid had his homegrown sidekick in All-Star Tyrese Maxey and nine-time All-Star Paul George along for the ride to form a kind of Big Three expected to challenge Boston, New York and Cleveland for Eastern Conference supremacy.
With all three walloped by injuries, they have played start-to-finish in all of two games this season.
Embiid slogged through headaches and dizziness to drop 34 points and led the 76ers past Charlotte on Friday night in a win that completed a 4-0 season sweep against the Hornets and propped the 76ers' record to a meager 9-16 overall.
“He does make the game so easy,” George said. “A lot of stuff was just plays we weren't in sync on. We'll get that as we're on the court more.”
The question again is raised around the NBA — what could the 76ers have accomplished had Embiid been healthy enough to always play 80 games a season?
As is the norm with Embiid, the two-time scoring champion will sit out the second game of a back-to-back Saturday at Cleveland.
“As long as it gets better every day,” Embiid said, “that'll be good.”
It's a modest goal as Embiid tries to make the days — using his word “manageable” — until perhaps it feels close to 100% in time for the playoffs.
His frankness in admitting he needed therapy belies a public persona of a 30-year-old who has delighted in playing the role of troll to needle rivals both in the locker room and on social media. Embiid — who signed a $193 million contract extension ahead of the season — has leaned on his wife and young son to push him through the hard days.
Embiid's a big brother to 20-somethings on the team like Maxey and rookie Jared McCain and he finally has a relatable peer this season in a fellow Olympic gold medalist George, who has had his own career interrupted by catastrophic injuries.
“You can never get enough of the support,” Embiid said. “If I'm being honest, when you've got the support from your family, people close to you, teammates, guys like (George), that's the reason why you want to keep doing it and you want to keep figuring it out. That's who you play for. The people who care about you, people that support you, people that push you. I have a hard time disappointing people, which I'm working on. When you've got that type of support, it's kind of hard to feel bad about yourself. I like to please people. You've just got to keep going.”
Keep going.
It's all Embiid can do now to find happiness on the court and in his personal life — and find some peace through treatment along the way.
He can at least improve his state of mind, even if the state of his body takes longer to heal.
“It's a work in progress. We'll see if it works," Embiid said. "You get to a point where nothing is working, I'm always willing to try anything and see if it works.”
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid left, tries to go up for a shot against Charlotte Hornets' Vasilije Micic during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid walks the court during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Charlotte Hornets, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid, left, goes up for a shot against Charlotte Hornets' Moussa Diabate during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid holds the ball during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Charlotte Hornets, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid reacts after being fouled during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Charlotte Hornets, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
