Stock market today: Wall Street climbs as S&P 500 closes out fourth straight winning month

  Stocks on Wall Street finished broadly higher Friday as the market closed out its fourth straight winning month with solid gains. A late-a...

 

Stocks on Wall Street finished broadly higher Friday as the market closed out its fourth straight winning month with solid gains.

A late-afternoon rally helped stocks bounce back from a midafternoon slide. The S&P 500 rose 1%, with about 76% of the stocks in the index notching gains.

The benchmark S&P 500 closed August with a 2.3% gain for the month. It’s now up 18.4% so far this year and is within 0.4% of the all-time high it set in July.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6%, setting its fourth all-time high this week.

The Nasdaq composite ended 1.1% higher.

Wall Street spent the day mulling over encouraging reports on inflation, consumer spending and income.

The Commerce Department said its personal consumption and expenditures report showed prices rose just 0.2% from June to July, up slightly from the previous month’s 0.1% increase. Compared with a year earlier, inflation was unchanged at 2.5%.