Stock market today: Nasdaq and S&P 500 rise as DOJ drops Powell investigation, Intel stock soars

Procter & Gamble (PG), known for household brands like Tide detergent, reported first quarter earnings that beat expectations, defying a slowdown in the face of increased costs from the war in Iran.

Analysts expect headwinds for P&G to build in the coming quarters, as higher oil prices stemming from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz affect everything from packaging to shipping costs. On top of that, persistent inflation could become a drag on consumer spending.

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi caught up with P&G’s CFO Andre Schulten to discuss the results.

“The consumer is relatively stable,” P&G CFO Andre Schulten told Yahoo Finance. “We see the bifurcation that we’ve been mentioning before, so you have some consumers looking for value in larger pack sizes. They shop in clubs, they shop online and at the big box retailers. And then you have some level of consumers that are looking for value in smaller pack sizes. They’re looking for smaller cash outlays and promotions. That dynamic continues.”

P&G stock rose 3% in early trading. Read more here.

Stocks were mixed as they began the conclusion to a jam-packed week of earnings, ongoing war tensions, and a Federal Reserve hearing.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led stocks higher, gaining 0.7% at the open, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) advanced 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) limped 0.3% lower.

Oil prices subsided on Friday morning, though not by much. Brent (BZ=F) futures, the international benchmark, dipped below the $100 a barrel mark.

The 10-year Treasury yield was flat at 4.32% ahead of next week’s Fed meeting. Gold (GC=F) edged lower to $4,712 an ounce, and bitcoin (BTC-USD) drifted up to $78,188 per token.

With the exception of double-digit gains in shares of chip names Intel (INTC), AMD (AMD), and Qualcomm (QCOM), a pretty muted start to the trading day.

Yahoo Finance’s Ines Ferré reports:

AMD (AMD) stock soared 10% to new highs in premarket trading on Friday.

D.A. Davidson upgraded shares of the chipmaker to a Buy rating from Neutral following rival Intel’s (INTC) strong quarterly results and outlook.

Intel’s results highlight the pivotal role central processing units (CPUs) play amid growing demand for AI agents, or bots that act on users’ behalf.

“CPU is reinserting itself as an indispensable foundation of the AI era, and the once sleepy CPU market has taken off as agentic workloads shift compute needs beyond GPUs,” analyst Gil Luria wrote in a note on Friday. “We view Intel’s results as a precursor for a huge step-up for AMD’s CPU franchise,” he added.

Read more here.

Kevin Warsh told lawmakers this week that inflation should be viewed through a different framework.

President Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve also said that the Fed’s own analysis of price changes needs to be reformed. Its preferred PCE index offers only a rough take on inflation, he said.

Yahoo Finance’s Jennifer Schonberger digs into the changes Warsh is eyeing:

Warsh favors using “trimmed averages” of inflation, he told Senate lawmakers during his confirmation hearing this week. The trimmed mean and median remove outliers. Both the Dallas Fed and the Cleveland Fed release a trimmed average inflation gauge that excludes outlier data — both high and low — to provide a clearer picture of prices.

… Any adjustment to the way the Fed measures inflation is sure to spark a market reaction.

“The analytical question is whether in citing these alternative metrics, Warsh is shifting the goalposts or making a reasonable economic argument,” said Krishna Guha, head of economics and global central banking for Evercore ISI.

“He would not be the first Fed chair to pick metrics that suit his case. But shopping around on inflation when the generally used indicator is not behaving is risky.”

Read more here.

Intel (INTC) stock rocketed more than 25% in early trading Friday following a first quarter earnings report that beat analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines and provided better-than-anticipated Q2 guidance on strong data center sales.

Yahoo Finance’s Daniel Howley reports:

“The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic. This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel’s CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings,” Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a statement.

“With a solid foundation in place, we are addressing this opportunity by listening to our customers and driving their success with our technical expertise and differentiated IP,” he said. “This deliberate reset to how we operate drove a sixth consecutive quarter of revenue above our expectations, as well as new and deepened relationships with strategic partners.”

Read more here.

Reuters reports:

Weekly inflows into global equity funds surged to a more than 17-month high in the week through ‌April 22, fuelled by optimism over demand for artificial intelligence ‌and robust first-quarter earnings from some major U.S. banks.

According to LSEG Lipper data, global ​equity funds attracted net weekly investments of $48.72 billion, the largest sum for a week since November 13, 2024.

Shares of TSMC (TSM), the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced AI chips, and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chip supplier SK ‌Hynix (000660.KS) hit record highs ⁠this week, bolstered by upbeat earnings.

US equity funds drew $27.98 billion, the most in four weeks, while European and ⁠Asian funds saw net inflows of $18.41 billion and $157 million, respectively.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Oil climbed for a fifth day, its longest string of gains since January, as uncertainty over talks between the US and Iran threatened to further delay flows from the Persian Gulf.

Brent (BZ=F) rose above $106 a barrel, headed for a weekly gain of about 17%, while West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) traded near $97. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts — as well as his decision to continue with a naval blockade of Iranian ports — have been detrimental to negotiations through mediators such as Pakistan, according to two US officials familiar with the matter.

The war has rattled energy markets since it started at the end of February, with the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz causing a sharp drop in flows from major oil and gas producers in the Persian Gulf. Fresh concerns that peace talks have stalled, an amping up of rhetoric, and increasing military threats are adding to the geopolitical premium in oil prices.

Read more here.