U.S. stocks open higher after PCE data shows inflation at lowest in over 2 years

U.S. stock indexes opened higher on Friday after the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation barometer shows price pressure continued to ease in May, providing relief to investors worried about more interest-rate increases from the central bank. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.60%
rose 187 points, or 0.5%, to 34,305, while the S&P 500
SPX,
+1.03%
was up 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+1.45%
gained 1.1%. Headline PCE increased a scant 0.1% in May on a month-over-month basis, the same rate reflected by the CPI numbers, while core increased by 0.3%, in line with Wall Street’s expectations. On a year-over-year basis, the increase in prices over the past year slowed to 3.8% from 4.3% and dropped to the lowest level in two years, the government said Friday. In other economic data, consumer spending rose a tepid 0.1% in May, but analysts polled by the Wall Street Journal had forecast 0.2% increase in spending.