Wall St. rises as PPI data keeps smaller rate cut in view

STORY: Wall Street's main indexes rose on Thursday after higher-than-expected producer prices data reinforced expectations for a quarter-point rate cut by the Federal Reserve at its policy meeting next week.

The Dow gained more than half a percent, the S&P 500 added three-quarters of a percent and the Nasdaq climbed one percent.

Despite this year's gains, David Lundgren, portfolio manager at Little Harbor Advisors, said it's hard to categorize this as a bull market - but that actually makes him more optimistic for 2025.

"When you actually look at the peak in the market in 2021, most stocks are actually still down about, depending on the stock, 17 to 20% relative to the 2021 peak. [FLASH] And so to me, I think the most surprising thing next year could be a very strong bull market, driven by things that are not Mag (Magnificent) 7. It could be all the stocks that have been kind of left to the wayside for the past three years that have been kind of going sideways while the fundamentals kind of get better, and we actually unlock a pretty strong bull market next year."

Among individual movers, shares of Moderna fell more than 12% after the vaccine maker forecast sales that were below analysts' estimates.

Kroger shares rallied more than 7% after the supermarket chain beat second-quarter estimates and raised the lower end of its annual sales forecast.

A deal between Warner Bros Discovery and Charter Communications sent those company's shares up roughly 10% and 3.5%, respectively. Charter said it will provide ad-supported versions of Warner's Max and Discovery+ streaming services.

And shares of gold miners jumped as spot gold hit another record high.