Market Moving Insight and Analysis.

Join Jim Kramer, David Faber, and me, Carl Kintanilla, on the opening bell hour of CNBC Squawk on the Street. Good Friday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the street. I'm Carl Kintanio with David Faber, Sarah Eisen at the New York Stock Exchange. Kramer has the morning off. We are wrapping up the month quarter in first half with a strong batch of news, headline PC in line lowest annual rate in two years future strong

as yields are down apple Nike banks semis and travel today on what could be a messy holiday weekend

our roadmap begins though with stocks at the end of the month quarter and half the nasdaq eyeing

its best first half since 83 and apple is looking looking to hit $3 trillion at the open.

Plus, of course, deal scrutiny, the FTC and Microsoft now awaiting a judge's decision,

which could help decide the fate of one of technology's largest ever acquisitions.

And Nike shares are falling ahead of the open, delivering what some say is a gloomy forecast as U.S. consumers cut back,

overshadowing a strong recovery in China. We'll discuss it.

Let's begin with the markets so far this year. All three major indices are in the green, led by the NAS, up almost 30%. As we said, best first half since 83. S&P closing in on 15%, which would be the best first half since

2018, confounding a lot of people who were eyeing more nefarious scenarios, say, at the beginning

of the year. It jives with the biggest surprise of the year, not just that the stock market is up,

but that the economy has remained so resilient and so much better than

everyone thought, and that inflation remained a little bit stickier. Now, having said that,

today's news, what we got, the PCE, that's the Fed's preferred gauge, comes in better. Better if

you're Jay Powell, better if you're Treasury Secretary Yellen, better if you're an investor

who's hoping for the end of rate hikes.

The main number 3.8% matches expectations.

That's on the headline.

But it's the lowest level we've seen in two years.

So that's good news, better than the 4.3% prior, if you look year over year, the core.

And if there's one thing I learned from all the central bankers this week, we only should be looking at the core because they are very focused on the core. It's stripping out more volatile food and energy and that sort of thing. And it shows you why they're concerned about it because it's higher than the headline, 4.6%. Now, it's a little bit moderated from 4.7%, so that's good, but it is still stubbornly high and higher than

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