Stock market today: Wall Street is wobbling after an inflation update, and indexes are mixed
Wall Street is drifting in mixed trading after an inflation report forced some investors to push back forecasts for when the Federal Reserve will deliver long-sought cuts to interest rates, but not to abandon them
NEW YORK — Wall Street is drifting in mixed trading Thursday after an update on inflation forced some investors to push back forecasts for when the Federal Reserve will deliver long-sought cuts to interest rates, but not to abandon them.
The S&P 500 was basically flat in late trading after swinging up and down a few times through the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 40 points, or 0.1%, with roughly an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.
Stocks had been roaring toward record heights on expectations that a cooldown in inflation would convince the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates sharply in 2024, which would boost prices for investments. Thursday morning’s inflation report was seen as a test that could show whether Wall Street’s hopes had gone overboard.
It showed U.S. consumers paid prices that were 3.4% higher overall in December than a year earlier. That’s an acceleration from November’s 3.1% inflation rate and a touch warmer than economists expected.
But trends underneath the surface may have been a bit more encouraging. After stripping out food and fuel prices, which can shift sharply from month to month, the rise in prices from November into December was close to economists’ expectations.
Altogether the data will likely cause traders to push back forecasts for when the first cut to rates will arrive, several analysts said, but they don’t preclude the central hopes that have sent stocks near records: Inflation is cooling, albeit in a jagged way, and the
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