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STORY: Wall Street eked out modest gains on Friday, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average notched its largest weekly gain of the year, as investors looked ahead to key inflation data due out next week.

The Dow closed up about a third of a percent higher, its eighth straight day of gains. The S&P 500 ended up fractionally, while the Nasdaq finished about flat but in the red.

All three indexes recorded another weekly gain, but the muted end to the week suggested investors might be holding steady before next week's highly anticipated consumer price index or CPI report for April.

The U.S. Labor Department is set to release the report on Wednesday and it will be one of the last the Federal Reserve will have to digest before it decides whether to cut interest rates or not.

That makes it an important one, says Glen Smith, chief investment officer at GDS Wealth Management.

"We're expecting CPI numbers to continue to trend down to the 2%, which is the fed target rate. We think it's going to be very important in helping the Fed to decide if they're going to cut rates or keep them elevated. If CPI numbers are trending down to two 2%, we think it's very likely we could get a rate cut in July. Not in June, but in July. And if and if we're really surprised and inflation is dropping dramatically, perhaps we could have two cuts this year."

Stocks on the move included Nvidia, which gained roughly 1.3% after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world's largest chipmaker and a major supplier to Nvidia, reported a near 60% jump in April sales.

Shares of SoundHound jumped more than 7% after the company beat first-quarter revenue estimates.

And shares of Novavax nearly doubled in value on Friday, after the vaccine maker said it scored a licensing deal worth up to $1.2 billion with Sanofi.