Stock market today: Wall Street inches down ahead of inflation report closely watched by Fed

abcnews.go.com:

Wall Street is poised to open with modest losses but is still on track for a winning February, despite a lackluster finish to the month

Wall Street is poised to open with modest losses Thursday but still on track for a winning February despite a down week at the finish.

Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were 0.3% lower before the bell Thursday.

Though earnings season isn't over, the vast majority of companies have reported quarterly results and the government's latest inflation update will draw most of the attention on Thursday.

The Commerce Department's report on consumer spending before markets open contains a measure of inflation that is closely watched by the Federal Reserve. The U.S. central bank has recently paused hiking its key lending rate after raising it to a 22-year high in an effort to corral inflation. Analysts forecast that year-over-year inflation ticked down in January to 2.3% from December’s 2.6%. The Fed's target is 2%.

Also due Thursday is the Labor Department's weekly layoffs report.

Processed food maker Hormel jumped nearly 5% in premarket after it breezed past Wall Street's first-quarter profit targets.

Even though it nearly doubled analysts' fourth-quarter profit projections, the cloud-computing company Snowflake tumbled more than 22% in off-hours trading after a surprise announcement that CEO Frank Slootman was retiring effective immediately. Slootman will be replaced by Sridhar Ramaswamy.

Artificial intelligence software maker C3.ai jumped 15.4% after it beat sales forecasts and only lost half as much money per share as Wall Street was expecting. The California tech company's revenue grew 18% year-over-year, boosted by an even bigger jump in subscriptions.

In midday