U.S. stock indexes edged higher on Thursday as a dip in bond yields supported megacap stocks, although investors remained cautious ahead of key inflation data and the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting next week.
The two-year Treasury yield, which tends to move in step with short-term rate expectations, slipped from one-week highs to 4.49% after a sharp jump in weekly jobless claims signaled a softening labor market.
Traders have priced in a 73% chance of the U.S. central bank holding interest rates at the current 5%-5.25% range during its monetary policy meeting on June 13-14, according to CMEGroup’s Fedwatch tool. However, they see a 50% chance of a rate hike in July.
“Our view remains that the Fed will pause in June, but leave the door open for a July hike, keeping it data dependent. Eventually we don’t think the Fed will hike in July,” Jefferies strategist Mohit Kumar said.
The benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed lower on Wednesday, with megacap stocks leading declines after the Bank of Canada (BoC) surprised markets with a rate hike, indicating that monetary tightening globally was far from over.
US weekly jobless claims increase more than expected
“They (BoC) do support our view that inflation would be sticky for longer than what central banks want which would rule out any cuts in 2023,” Kumar said.
The U.S. Labor Department is due to release inflation data on June 13, the first day of the Fed meeting. The numbers are expected to show consumer prices cooled slightly in May but core prices remained sticky.
Heavyweight Amazon.com Inc gained 2.2% as Wells Fargo initiated coverage on the company with an “overweight” rating, while Nvidia Corp and Tesla Inc rose about 1% each.
Another big mover was GameStop Corp, whose shares tanked 19.3% as billionaire investor Ryan Cohen took over as executive chairman after the video-game retailer ousted its CEO and posted a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss.
At 10:06 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 53.11 points, or 0.16%, at 33,718.13, the S&P 500 was up 7.13 points, or 0.17%, at 4,274.65, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 50.86 points, or 0.39%, at 13,155.75.
Among the 11 major S&P sectors, real estate and material indexes led declines after their recent run-up. Banks retreated 1.2%.
The CBOE Volatility index, also known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, edged up after dropping to a pre-pandemic low of 13.77 on Wednesday.
Adobe added 4.3% after Piper Sandler raised its prices target on the stock to $500. The Photoshop software maker said it was offering its AI tool “Firefly” to large businesses.
Lucid Group inched up 0.9% after the U.S. luxury electric vehicle maker’s head of China operations, Zhu Jiang, said the company was preparing to enter the world’s largest auto market.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.57-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 1.38-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded five new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 23 new highs and 20 new lows.