us stocks finished higher friday with the nasdaq composite closing out june with its strongest first half of a year since 1983 as investors hoped the federal reserve might be able to back off its inflation battle more quickly than fed chief jerome powell has telegraphed for the week the dow gained 2 the sp 500 advanced 23 and the nasdaq increased 22 according to dow jones market data all three indexes rose in june with the sp 500 climbing for a fourth straight month to book its longest monthly win streak since august 2021 the nasdaq also climbed for a fourth consecutive month to score its longest such win streak since april 2021 the final trading day of the week month and quarter presented a positive picture for us stocks as the main indexes advanced following the latest inflation report clearly today the market likes and is responding to the inflation data said chris fasciano portfolio manager at commonwealth financial network in a phone interview friday it continues to show softening inflation and thats clearly what the feds looking for he said i think investors are comfortable right now with a softlanding scenario for the economy on friday data showed us inflation measured by the personalconsumptionexpenditures price index eased to 38 in may on a 12month basis the slowest increase since april 2021 the pce price index edged up 01 on a monthovermonth basis in may while core prices which exclude volatile food and energy products increased by 03 the governments pce inflation report was in line with economists expectations the data added to an increasingly upbeat portrait of a us economy which has continued to expand despite the feds aggressive tightening of monetary policy gross domestic product in the us expanded 2 during the first quarter much stronger than the previous 13 reading data released on thursday showed in other us economic updates the university of michigan said friday the final reading of its consumersentiment index for june improved to 644 thats a fourmonth high still the pce report showed consumer spending rose just 01 in may slower than economists had anticipated the federal reserve has been raising interest rates since 2022 to cool the economy and tame inflation fed chair jerome powell said earlier this week that he didnt expect inflation in the us to return to the central banks 2 target until 2025 right now the feds job is not clearcut said george mateyo the chief investment officer of key private bank in emailed commentary friday while they may not be done with rake hikes perhaps they dont have much more work to do the us stock market has rallied this month bringing the sp 500 indexs gains this quarter to 83 the sp 500 jumped 159 in the first six months of this year while the techheavy nasdaq soared 317 for its best first half since 1983 according to dow jones market data this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal