The S&P 500
rose to a fresh all-time intraday high on Thursday as oil prices declined and traders digested more inflation data.
The broad market index was up 0.7%, while the Nasdaq Composite
gained 0.9%, boosted by gains in Meta Platforms
, Micron Technology
and Netflix
. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
added 53 points, or 0.1%.
Brent crude futures
shed 2% to trade at $86.98 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate futures
slid 2% to $81.14 per barrel. The moves come as traders weighed falling oil demand while the U.S.-Iran war continues.
Wall Street got another look at U.S. inflation on Thursday, with the July reading of the U.S. producer price index — which gauges what wholesalers pay for raw goods and materials — coming in unchanged. Economists polled by Dow Jones had called for an increase of 0.2% on the month. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core PPI rose 0.2%, just below the gain of 0.3% economists expected.
The lighter-than-expected PPI report comes a day after an in-line reading on the consumer price index.
CPI for July increased by 0.1% month over month, matching expectations. The tame report gave the S&P 500
a boost, with the benchmark closing higher for the first time in three sessions. The report led to traders paring expectations for a rate hike in September.
“Still, the odds favor a rate increase in either October or December, after monetary policy officials take time to gauge the temperature on both sides of the central bank’s mandate,” said José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.
Cisco Systems
was a key laggard of the day, falling 9% after the company’s latest quarterly results failed to impress investors. Cerebras
and Coherent
also moved lower after their earnings updates, with the former plummeting 13% and the latter dropping 3%.
The Russell 2000,
which focuses on small-cap stocks, just hit a record-breaking high of 3,067 on Thursday.
It’s up over 23% year to date and up over 2% in the last month.
