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 rose 187 points, or 0.5%, to 34,305, while the S&P 500 SPX was up 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP 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.
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