1. CPI Report Shows Inflation Eased to 3% in June — the consumer-price index climbed 3% in June from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday, sharply lower than the recent peak inflation rate of 9.1% in June 2022, when gasoline prices hit a U.S. record average of $5 a gallon. The June rate declined from 4% in May. Inflation was last close to 3% in March 2021. Consumers paid less last month for used cars and airline fares, and their rent increased at the slowest one-month pace since early 2022. Prices for car insurance and recreation services rose. Fed officials are on track to raise rates to a 22-year high at their July 25-26 meeting because economic activity hasn’t slowed down as much as anticipated. But the inflation report calls into question whether the Fed will lift rates after that, as most officials projected last month.
2. The Rapid Rise of Threads Appears to Be Hurting Twitter — Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Threads parent Meta Platforms said the new microblogging platform hit 100 million sign-ups less than a week after launching. At least two third-party estimates suggest Twitter traffic has been falling in tandem, an indication that its users may be leaving it for Threads rather than attempting to juggle both. The two products look and function in similar ways. Both focus on sharing short snippets of text but also allow users to post photos and videos. One distinction is that joining Threads requires having an account with Meta’s Instagram, which has more than 2 billion monthly users. That has made signing up easy and fast, though deleting a Threads account means also having to delete one’s Instagram account.
3. U.S. Takes Third Shot at Shoring Up Money-Market Funds — The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 Wednesday to change the rules governing money-market funds, which the Federal Reserve had to backstop with emergency lending facilities in 2008 and 2020. Two previous overhauls by the SEC failed to stop investors from fleeing certain funds en masse when markets faced extreme stress. Following criticism from mutual-fund lobbyists and some lawmakers, the SEC dialed back Wednesday’s rules from a version it proposed in 2021. That had included a requirement for some funds to implement so-called swing pricing, a mechanism used in Europe that aims to keep investors in the funds from seeing their shares diluted when others pull out in times of stress.
Instead, the final rule requires certain money-market funds used by institutional investors to impose fees when a fund sees daily net redemptions that exceed 5% of net assets.
4. Google’s Bard AI Chatbot Adds More Languages to Take On ChatGPT — The Alphabet GOOG 4.36%increase; green up pointing triangle unit plans Thursday to add several new features to Bard, its generative-AI chatbot, including the ability to converse in 43 additional languages, from Arabic to Vietnamese. The company will also make Bard available across much of Europe and in Brazil, territories that are home to hundreds of millions of people. The rollout also includes additional privacy features that were requested by European Union regulators last month, delaying the chatbot’s release in the region.

Here is a summary of the market last week:
Inflation data: The main event of the week was the release of inflation data on Wednesday. Both headline and core inflation came in lower than expected, with headline inflation falling to 3.0% and core inflation falling to 4.8%. This was seen as a sign that inflation is starting to cool, which helped to boost stocks.
Fed meeting: The Fed also met last week and hinted that they may be slowing the pace of interest rate hikes in the coming months. This was also seen as positive for stocks, as it reduced the risk of a recession.
Stocks: As a result of these factors, stocks had a strong week, with the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ Composite both gaining more than 2%. The NASDAQ Composite had its best week in four months.
Bonds: Bonds also performed well last week, with yields falling across the board. This was due to the combination of lower inflation and the expectation of slower Fed rate hikes.
Overall, it was a positive week for the markets, as investors welcomed the signs that inflation is starting to cool. However, it is important to note that inflation is still well above the Fed’s target, so there is still some risk that the central bank will need to continue raising rates.

Here are some additional details:
The S&P 500 closed the week at 3,902.06, up 2.04%.
The NASDAQ Composite closed the week at 11,607.62, up 3.11%.
The 10-year Treasury yield closed the week at 3.12%, down 11 basis points.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:

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