U.S. stocks were strongly higher last week with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posting their strongest weekly gains of the year. Big Tech led the advance, ending a string of four straight weekly losses on both indices. Even so, the S&P 500 remains 1.99% below its July 16 most recent record high peak. Fresh economic data boosted investor sentiment last week, including improving consumer spending and easing inflation. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose just 0.2% in July and on a year-over year basis both the CPI (+2.9%) and its core price measure that excludes volatile food and energy items (+3.2%), had their smallest increases since March 2021 and April 2021, respectively.