U.S. stocks traded higher midway through Friday’s session, with the Dow up 1.16% at 52,666.76, the Nasdaq Composite rising 1.23% to 26,403.20 and the S&P 500 gaining 1.08% to 7,673.87. Communication services shares led sector gains with a 1.7% advance, while energy stocks slipped 0.2%. Kroger rose about 3% after reporting second-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.09 per share and sales of $34.621 billion, beating estimates of $1.06 and $34.580 billion, respectively. Frequency Electronics jumped 30% to $80.96 after reporting better-than-expected first-quarter results, while ACV Auctions surged 44% to $10.42 after Copart announced a definitive agreement to acquire it for $10.50 per share in cash. Indaptus Therapeutics gained 7% to $2.73 after announcing a private placement of 20,338,974 shares for gross proceeds of $24 million. CPI Card Group fell 16% to $22.61 after pricing a proposed secondary public offering of 2,337,323 shares at $21.50 each. Ocean Power Technologies dropped 40% to $0.095 after announcing a 1-for-30 reverse stock split effective September 14, while NuScale Power fell 11% to $9.12 after UBS downgraded the stock from Neutral to Sell and cut its price target from $10 to $6. Oil fell 2.9% to $99.54, while gold rose 0.2% to $4,416.10, silver gained 0.6% to $65.335 and copper increased 0.1% to $6.5475. European shares were higher, led by gains in the STOXX 600, Spain’s IBEX 35, London’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40. Asian markets closed lower, with declines in Japan, Hong Kong, China and India. U.S. annual inflation remained at 3.4% in August, matching market expectations and July’s reading, while the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index fell to 47.8 in early September versus expectations of 51.0.