U.S. stocks closed another record-setting week with a muted performance Friday, as hope built on Wall Street that the U.S. economy can manage the rare feat of suppressing high inflation without causing a recession.

Some worry that the rate cuts may not be enough to avert a downturn, and Wall Street views the monthly employment report as one of the more critical reads on the economy. The prior two monthly reports have shown weaker-than-expected job increases, raising the stakes for the Oct 4 data.

Wall Street was relatively listless ahead of the government’s latest inflation report. Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were essentially unchanged less than two hours