Investing.com - Wall Street opened higher on Wednesday as investors digested the latest bout of inflation data as they weighed the Federal Reserve plans for further rate hikes.
At 9:39AM ET (13:39GMT), the Dow Jones gained 70 points, or 0.28%, the S&P 500 rose 9 points, or 0.35%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded up 22 points, or 0.30%.The three major indices were on track for weekly gains of more than 1%.
In economic data out Thursday, headline inflation rose 2.5% on an annualized basis in April, up from the prior month’s 2.4% increase, but in line with forecasts.
Core inflation however unexpectedly held steady at 2.1%, surprising expectations for a 2.2% rise.
The Fed tends to focus more on the core data which removes volatile food and energy data. The softer reading helps to allay fears that the Fed will need to lift interest rates more quickly than expected.
Market participants are closely watching inflation data to gauge whether the Fed will become more aggressive on policy tightening. Fed fund futures continue to price the odds of a fourth hike this year in December below the 50% threshold.
Apart from inflation, the U.S. labor market continues to show signs of strength with weekly jobless claims holding steady at 211,000, beating bets for an increase to 219,000.
Among large stocks moves seen on Thursday, Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) saw shares soar nearly 4% after the provider of streaming video devices reported a loss that was less than half as large as feared.
Macy’s (NYSE:M) was hit by an analyst downgrade, sinking its stock around 3%. Morgan Stanley cut its recommendation on the department store chain to under-weight from equal-weight citing a recent run-up in the share price and the decline in comparable store sales.
As earnings season draws to a close, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is one of the notable names slated to report fiscal first-quarter results after U.S. markets close on Thursday.
Meanwhile, investors appeared to take profit in oil. While struggling on Thursday, crude prices remained on track for their biggest weekly increase in a month after the threat this week of a supply disruption from the U.S. renewed sanctions on Iran.
U.S. crude futures fell 0.11% to $71.06 by 9:42AM ET (13:42GMT), while Brent oil lost 0.32% to $76.96.