US Stocks Inch Higher
2026-02-13 15:55
By
Andre Joaquim
1 min. read
US stocks gained ground on Friday with support from software companies and a tame inflation print for January.
The three main averages were 0.6% higher, trimming the aggressive pullback from the previous session.
The headline inflation and core inflation rates eased as expected, maintaining market bets that the Federal Reserve will cut rates multiple times this year.
In the meantime, software service companies enjoyed some respite from the aggressive selling this week as the advance in automation tools raised concerns of displacement in the sector.
Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Oracle added between 3% and 4%.
Also, Applied Materials and Arista Networks jumped 13% and 6% after their earnings report.
Still, chip producers and companies that led the datacenter capital expenditure growth remained lower, with Nvidia, Alphabet, and Amazon down up to 1.5%.
Concerns of exaggerated spending in the industry drove the Nasdaq 100 to be set for a third straight week of losses.