As investors sought new consumer inflation statistics for further information on the economy, U.S. stock futures edged up Thursday.
118 points, or 0.3%, were added by futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures both increased by 0.4%.
Thursday morning will see the release of the September consumer pricing data. According to economists surveyed by Dow Jones, September’s economy would grow 3.6% from last year and by 0.3% from this month. Investors anticipate that the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates the same or increase them at its two-day meeting starting on October 31 would be heavily influenced by the strength of inflation revealed in the report.
The information follows a September producer price index reading that was higher than anticipated.
Although the core inflation trend continued to decline, [August’s] CPI data was a little stronger than we had anticipated. According to Andrew Patterson, senior economist at Vanguard, “We would hope for that to continue, [but] would be closely watching the pass-through of higher energy costs into broader inflation in the months ahead should they persist.”
The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict has sparked concerns about a probable oil supply shortage and subsequent increase in fuel costs if the geopolitical unrest spreads to nearby oil producers in the area.
Source (CNBC)
