Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock exchange during morning trading on November 10, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Stocks rose Wednesday, building on the strong rally from the previous session, on the back of more encouraging inflation data.
Stocks rose Wednesday, building on the strong rally from the previous session, on the back of more encouraging inflation data.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 145 points higher, or 0.4%. The S&P 500 climbed 0.5%, as did the Nasdaq Composite.
After tumbling 18 basis points on Tuesday, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury climbed more than 10 basis points in Wednesday’s trading session.
October’s producer price index, which measures wholesale prices, fell by 0.5% to mark its biggest monthly drop since April 2020. Not all of the economic data was positive, however, since retail sales also declined.
“Clearly, interest rates are the key driver of this stock market, and the activity today makes sense because PPI was very, very cool, as we had expected,” said Jay Hatfield, founder and CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “Today, rates are a little bit higher not because of PPI but because retail sales printed a little bit hot relative to expectations.”
Wall Street is coming off a strong session. On Tuesday, both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite had their best day since April.
These gains came after October’s consumer price index, a key inflation metric, came in lower than the 0.1% increase economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected. Instead, the CPI came in flat on a monthly basis. Investors celebrated the news, sending stocks soaring on the hopes that the Federal Reserve could finally put an end to its rate-hiking campaign.
In corporate news, Target popped 17% on better-than-expected results for the third quarter. Shares of apparel company VF added nearly 15% following a JPMorgan upgrade to neutral from underweight.
Wall Street also had its eyes on Washington as lawmakers tried to avoid a government shutdown. Late Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill to avert a government shutdown. The measure will go to the Senate for a vote. If cleared by lawmakers, the legislation goes to President Joe Biden. Without a funding bill, the federal government is slated to shut down at the end of the week.
— CNBC’s Chelsey Cox contributed reporting.
Read the full article here