Wall Street opens in green awaiting new inflation data

Wall Street opened in the green on Wednesday, albeit with little movement, awaiting the release of new inflation data that will bolster the hopes suggested yesterday by Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell of a possible rate cut in September.

Two minutes after the market opened, the main indicator, the Dow Jones, was almost flat, with an almost imperceptible rise, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.23% to 5,599 pointsand is thus on track for a sixth consecutive record-breaking day.

However, the Nasdaq index was the most successful at this time, gaining 0.42% to 18,506 points.

Fresh data on the consumer price index for June is expected tomorrow, and on Friday those for producers, with the hope that they will show a cooling of inflation and thus give meaning to Powell’s words yesterday.

“The most recent inflation readings have shown some modest progress, and more good data would strengthen our confidence that inflation is moving sustainably towards 2%“the Fed chairman said yesterday during his speech before the US Senate Banking Committee as part of his semi-annual hearing.

Powell insisted that the Fed does not believe it is “appropriate” to reduce interest rates until it has “gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%,” something that was not achieved in the first quarter, he specified.

This week, the market is also awaiting the start of a new earnings season, which will be inaugurated by the major banks – JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and Citi Group – and other large corporations such as PepsiCo.

Meanwhile, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond fell to 4.291%.

Among the 30 Dow stocks, very little movement is detected in these first hours and almost all companies move by percentages less than 1%; only Honeywell’s rise (1.2%) and the falls of Visa (-1.59%) and Salesforce (-1.22%) stand out.

In other markets, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil opened on Tuesday with a drop of 0.29%, to $81.17 a barrel.

In its latest report released today, OPEC said its oil supply fell by 125,000 barrels per day in June (with cuts mainly from Saudi Arabia and Russia), but this is not having an immediate effect on prices.

The oil cartel blamed this on the cautious policy of the US Federal Reserve when it comes to lowering interest rates, given that the dollar is the currency used for most transactions in the oil market.