CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Higher, Dow Up 700 Points, Average US Gas Price Hits $4.30 Per Gallon 4/30/26

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

CNBC Business News Update with Jessica Ettinger - market numbers and news featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business names. Visit https://www.cnbc.com/ for more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm Jessica Eddinger. CNBC Wall Street is higher with the Dow soaring this afternoon on this final trading day of April. The Dow is up 728 points, 1.5% Caterpillar shares leading it higher. They're up 10% on strong quarterly results. The S&P 500 index up 33 points. The NASDAQ up 30 points. Shares of Nvidia are in the red this afternoon. They're tanking 4%. Companies who shares at fresh all-time highs today include Google Parent Alphabet, Amazon, and the aforementioned Caterpillar, which first started trading on the New York Stock Exchange back in 1929. Apple reports quarterly results after the closing bell today. Prices at the pump went up overnight again. AAA says the national average for a gallon of regular hit $4.30.

34 states now have gas that costs at least $4 a gallon on average. We're 60 days roughly in to the greatest global supply shock in the energy business's history. And it will take, say, 40 days to get empty boats in reloading again. And the issue inherently with that is what's Asia going to do for oil? What's Asia going to do for diesel? What's Asia going to do for gasoline? What does that mean for price? It means we haven't cleared the market.

And the only way to clear commodity markets when you have supply squeezes is high prices. Smead Capital's Coal, Smead on CNBC. investors are watching to see how gas prices impact consumer spending. The U.S. is a consumer economy. Two-thirds of U.S. economic growth normally falls on the backs of consumers. Government spending bounced back in the first quarter after last fall shut down. That helped U.S. economic growth tick up to 2% in the first quarter, but without AI spending, U.S. growth might have been dead in the water. GDP, gross domestic product, is out. Here's CNBC's Joe Kernan and senior economics reporter Steve Leesman. The contribution to GDP from intellectual property products, software research development, 0.7. The contributions from information processing equipment, 0.8.

1.5 percentage points to GDP of a total of 2% coming from the AI boom. Now, I can't say every dollar there is exactly that, but if you want to know how powerful this investment is, It is giving you a very large chunk of all of your growth in this corner. So when we go crazy about the MAG7 reports, we're not wrong. These are important things that are. Assuming they profit from it. Inflation hit 3.5% in March, the highest in nearly three years in the personal consumption expenditures data. PCE, year over year numbers on PCE, year over year would be up 3.5%.

And we're looking for a number that was 3.5% higher than 2.8. That'll be the warmest since May of 23. That's CNBC's Rick Santelli, March core inflation, 3.2% as expected. In 2019, before the pandemic, Americans enjoyed average inflation of just 1.7%. Live golf is going away. The Saudi Arabian Investment Fund behind it is pulling out. Hershey says GLP1 weight loss drugs driving higher, gum, and mince sales. Jessica Eddinger, CNBC.

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