Wall Street is rolling into the long weekend with some positive momentum thanks to a group of stocks that caught fire this week. Stocks are poised to finish the busy week — filled with consumer price index and producer price index readings as well as the closely watched Federal Reserve policy announcement — higher. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are on pace to post their best respective weeks since March. (U.S. markets will be closed Monday due to the Juneteenth holiday.) Investors seemed pleased with the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates the same after 10 consecutive hikes. Market participants appear to be anticipating an end to rate hikes on the horizon, though the central bank did note that two more increases were expected this year. Though the stock market saw gains across the board, some still performed better than others. CNBC Pro screened for the top performers in the S & P 500 week to date, with data from FactSet compiled shortly after Friday’s opening bell. See which stocks performed the best: Cruise stocks Carnival and Norwegian were, respectively, on pace to be the best and third-best performing stocks. Both rallied this week following upgrades to Carnival shares from JPMorgan and Bank of America. And both hit levels not seen since May 2022 in Friday’s session. “We met with all 3 publicly traded cruise companies … and came away with more confidence that industry demand remains steady in a time of consumer uncertainty, the pricing environment is rational, and booking curves are in line with company expectations,” Bank of America analyst Andrew Didora wrote when upgrading Carnival to buy from neutral. He held neutral ratings on Norwegian and Royal Caribbean , but increased his price targets on all three. This week’s rally extends 2023 gains for the cruise lines , as Carnival and Norwegian have surged more than 95% and 55%, respectively, since the start of the year. However, analysts expect both stocks to tumble following the recent jumps. Around two out of every five analysts rate each stock a buy. CCL RCL,NCLH YTD mountain The three public cruise lines Chipmaker Intel was also among the best performers this week with a gain of more than 15%. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Intel was among the companies in talks with chip designer Arm about participating in an initial public offering. Late last month, CFO David Zinsner said Intel’s data center business is starting to “turn the corner.” But Wall Street doesn’t expect the rally to last. Just over one out of every 10 analysts have a buy rating on the stock, with the average price target implying shares should fall more than 12% over the next year. Intel has jumped more than 37% this year. Further down the list, Adobe added more than 12% this week, thanks in part to a bump Friday after the company beat expectations and offered positive guidance when reporting earnings for the second fiscal quarter. More than two out of every five analysts rate the stock a buy, with the average price tag implying shares could rally another 4.7% over the next year. The stock has already gained nearly 50% since 2023 began. — CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report
