Investing.com – The S&P and Nasdaq opened higher on Tuesday as cooling inflation supported hopes for a long period without any further interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve.
The 1.5% annual print leaves inflation comfortably below the Fed's 2% target, with no sign that wages - which grew at their fastest rate in a decade according to the February employment report, are pushing it higher in the short term.
The S&P 500 rose 7 points or 0.28% as of 9:39 AM ET (14:39 GMT), and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 22 points, or 0.29%.
"The number is right in line with estimates and that is a positive for markets," said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.
"It doesn't require the Fed to raise rates and is very supportive of current stock prices."
Meanwhile the Dow slipped 16 points or 0.06%, dragged down for a second consecutive day by index heavy-weight Boeing (NYSE:BA), whose 737 Max 8 airplanes have now been temporarily banned by U.K. authorities and grounded by Australia, Singapore, South Korea and several Latin American countries. The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority has said it has no plans to ground the jet.
Boeing was down 4%, while Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) fell 0.4% and Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) inched down 0.2%.
Elsewhere, American Express (NYSE:AXP) jumped 0.6%, while UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH) rose 0.5% amid news that it will require the rebates it gets from drugmakers to be passed on to final users by employer clients.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was up 0.6% and IBM (NYSE:IBM) rose 0.56%.
In commodities, gold futures shot up 0.44% to $1,296.85 a troy ounce while crude oil rose 0.67% to $57.16 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, declined 0.16% to 97.02.
-Reuters contributed to this report.