US equities surged on Thursday as investors processed the latest consumer pricing data, which may help establish expectations for the direction of interest rates and ease inflation pressures.
With a gain of 1.4%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the way. Micron's (MU) good earnings report caused its shares to climb 10%. The tech increase followed another brutal session for tech on Wednesday due to concerns about the AI trade.
Both the blue chip-heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) and the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) saw increases of about 0.8% and 0.2%, respectively.
The morning's main event was a lower-than-anticipated Consumer Price Index (CPI) data that revealed inflation increased 2.7% in November compared to the previous year and 2.6% on a "core" basis, both of which fell short of economists' predictions of 3% and 3.1%, respectively.
Similar to Tuesday's monthly jobs report, experts have pointed out that the US government shutdown may make the inflation statistics less trustworthy than usual.
However, the Federal Reserve appears to be more concerned with labor market fissures than with pricing pressures. Before the CPI data was released on Wednesday, Fed Governor Chris Waller expressed support for rate reductions.
Regarding employment, the Department of Labor reported 224,000 initial claims for unemployment for the week ending December 13, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week's total. However, since the federal shutdown, that data has also experienced considerable volatility.
Following Oracle's (ORCL) loss of crucial support for a $10 billion data center project, which sent its stock down on Wednesday along with major names like Nvidia (NVDA) and Broadcom (AVGO), Wall Street is keeping an eye out for further indications of the tech malaise.
Micron, a supplier to Nvidia (NVDA), predicted that its adjusted profit for the upcoming quarter would be almost twice as high as analysts anticipated, and the company's earnings late on Wednesday portrayed a more optimistic picture of AI demand.
In other news, Tae Technologies, a fusion power organization supported by Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Chevron (CVX), and Trump Media & Technology organization (DJT, DJTWW) reached a $6 billion merger.
As a wager on AI-driven energy demand, shares of Trump Media, the company that runs the Truth Social platform, shot up following the news.
