NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are opening modestly higher on Wall Street, on track to end a mostly miserable August on an up note. The S&P 500 was up 0.2% in early Thursday. It’s still on track for its first monthly loss since February. The Dow rose 165 points, or 0.5%. The Nasdaq composite was up 0.2%. Treasury yields were holding relatively steady. The government reported that the measure of inflation that’s closely tracked by the Federal Reserve remained low last month. That’s the latest sign that price increases are cooling. Investors are hoping the Fed may be close to done raising interest rates.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Wall Street pushed higher Thursday ahead of new inflation and jobs data that could influence the Federal Reserve and its policy decisions regarding benchmark interest rates.
Futures for the Dow Jones industrials rose 0.5% and the S&P 500 advanced 0.2% as more corporate earnings reports trickled in after the bell Wednesday.
Markets are trying to claw back losses on the last day of what’s been a brutal month. Even with a hot streak the past two weeks, the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq are all still down close to 2% in August.
It would be just the second down month for the Nasdaq this year.
The U.S. issues an inflation update early Thursday as part of its report on personal consumption and expenditures — the measure of prices most closely watched by the Fed. It eased to 3% in July from last year’s peak of 7%.
The Fed has raised interest rates 11 times since March of 2021 in an attempt to stifle inflation. Higher rates help to cool the economy and slow price growth, but analysts hope not so much as to tip the economy into recession.
Monthly employment data for August are due out Friday following reports this week that hiring is cooling. Official data Tuesday showed U.S. hiring has slowed, another possible data point in favor of the Fed holding steady on interest rates that are at a 22-year high. Fed officials have said rate decisions will be guided by readings on hiring, inflation and consumer spending.
The latest data “bolster the case for no change in rates” at the Fed’s September meeting, said Rubeela Farooqi of High-Frequency Economics in a report.
In equities trading, Dollar General fell more than 16% in premarket after the discount retailer missed Wall Street’s sales and profit targets and slashed its outlook for the rest of the year.
Software company Salesforce, the owner of the Slack communications platform, rallied about 6% in premarket after it topped analysts’ second-quarter sales and profit expectations.
The online pet store Chewy tumbled around 5% early Thursday after initially rallying when the company reported sales and profit that beat analyst forecasts on Wednesday afternoon.
In Europe, annual inflation held steady in August as food prices raced ahead of falling fuel costs, but there was no clarity about whether the European Central Bank will pause its record series of interest rate hikes.
At midday, the FTSE 100 in London and the CAC 40 in Paris each rose 0.2%, while the DAX in Frankfurt jumped 0.9%.
In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.6% to 3,119.87 after a monthly index of Chinese service industries declined to 51 from June’s 51.2 on a 100-point scale on which numbers above 50 show activity growing. A separate manufacturing index improved to 49.7 but still showed activity contracting.
Chinese economic growth slid to 0.8% over the previous quarter in the three months ending June from the January-March quarter’s 2.2%. Exports have contracted and retail spending is weak.
The latest figures suggest Asia’s biggest economy is not “definitively growing,” said Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management in a report. “These figures might not sufficiently reassure the markets.”
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 0.9% to 32,619.34 after official data showed Japanese factory activity shrank by 2% from the previous month in July.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong retreated 0.6% to 18,382.06 and the Kospi in Seoul lost 0.2% to 2,556.27.
Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 gained 0.1% to 7,305.30 while India’s Sensex shed 0.2% to 64,962.20.
New Zealand and Singapore advanced while Bangkok and Jakarta declined.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude oil gained 67 cents to $82.30 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose 47 cents on Wednesday to $81.63. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, advanced 64 cents to $85.88 per barrel in London.
The dollar declined to 145.83 yen from Wednesday’s 146.20 yen. The euro edged down to $1.0865 from $1.0923.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 advanced 0.4% after the U.S. government cut its quarterly growth estimate for an annual rate of 2.1% from 2.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.5%.
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McDonald reported from Beijing; Ott reported from Silver Spring, Md.