US open: Stocks mixed following PPI reading

dl wall street wall st new york city new york stock exchange nyse dow jones nasdaq street sign nyc united states usa america pb — Sharecast / Alessandro D Andrea via Pixabay

Wall Street trading got off to a mixed start early on Thursday as traders digested more inflation data following yesterday's consumer price index report.

As of 1515 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.13% at 40,810.01, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.09% to 5,558.90 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.35% weaker at 17,455.63.

The Dow opened 51.70 points lower on Thursday, taking a bite out of gains recorded in the previous session after a late-day tech rally lifted stocks from their session lows.

Thursday's primary focus will be last month's producer price index, which revealed wholesale prices in the US increased a tad slower than anticipated last month, although growth was a bit higher than expected at the core level. According to the Department of Labor, in seasonally adjusted terms, so-called total final demand prices rose at a month-on-month pace of 0.2% in August and by 1.7% in annual terms. Economists had forecast a month-on-month gain of 0.1% and a year-on-year rate of increase of 1.8%.

Goods prices were flat overall and up by 0.2% when energy and food were excluded, while services prices were ahead by 0.4%, led by a 0.6% in trade prices, which includes retailers' margins. Core producer prices were up by 0.3% over the month (consensus: 0.2%).

Elsewhere on the macro front, Americans lined up for unemployment benefits at an accelerated pace in the week ended 7 September, according to the Department of Labor, in line with market expectations. US initial jobless claims rose by 2,000 week-on-week to 230,000, well above average seen earlier in the year and reinforcing the ongoing trend of a softening labour market. Outstanding claims rose by 5,000 to 1.85m, while the four-week moving average, which aims to strip out week-to-week volatility grew by 500 to 230,750.

Still to come, the Federal Government's monthly budget statement will be published at 1900 BST.

In the corporate space, retailer Kroger was in the green early on Thursday after its quarterly profit beat offset a sales miss.

Adobe was slated to post earnings after the close on Thursday.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

3M Co. (MMM) $130.95 0.55%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $250.91 0.54%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $372.39 0.51%
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) $8.78 0.46%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $88.46 0.16%
Dowdupont Inc. (DWDP) $0.00 0.00%
Walmart Inc. (WMT) $78.83 -0.01%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $137.85 -0.02%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $114.64 -0.07%
Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $231.09 -0.09%