Stocks rose Wednesday as investors digested the latest inflation reading ahead of the Federal Reserve's next policy meeting next week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose over 100 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite advanced over 1% and 2%, respectively.
Here's how the market settled on Wednesday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +1.07% or +58.61 points to 5,554.13
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +0.31% or +124.75 points to 40,861.71
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +2.17% or +369.65 points to 17,395.53
Moving Markets:
Consumer Prices rose by their lowest level since February 2021, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, bolstering more optimism towards a potential quarter percentage point rate cut from the Fed.
The consumer price index increased 0.2% for the month in August, coming in-line with expectations, while the annual inflation rate rose by 2.5%, declining by 0.4 percentage point from July and coming in slightly below estimates. However, core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, rose by a slightly higher-than-expected 0.3% for the month and held at 3.2% for the year, which was in-line with analysts.
"Overall, inflation appears to have been successfully tamed but, with housing inflation still refusing to moderate as quickly as hoped, it hasn't been completely vanquished," Paul Ashworth, chief North American economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note Wednesday, quoted by CNBC.
On the Earnings Front:
GameStop (NYSE: GME) shares declined on Wednesday after the videogame retailer reported disappointing second-quarter revenue. The company reported $798.3 million in revenue for the quarter compared with $1.16 billion a year earlier. GameStop's second-quarter net income also totaled $14.8 million, or $0.04 per share, compared with a loss of $2.8 billion, $0.01 per share.
The company also filed for an offering of up to 20 million shares intended "for general corporate purposes, which may include acquisitions and investments in a manner consistent with our investment policy."
For Thursday:
Market participants will turn their attention towards the Labor Department's producer price index (PPI) reading for one last look at inflation before the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) next week.