NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes closed higher on Thursday as a soft inflation report fed expectations for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, while chipmaker Micron’s blowout forecast signalled strong AI demand.
The Consumer Price Index report showed that consumer prices increased less than expected in the year to November. The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish month-to-month CPI changes after the 43-day shutdown of the government prevented the collection of October data.
“The constructive CPI report … starts to ease pressure on policymakers further to potentially get more comfortable cutting rates next year,” said Bill Merz, head of capital markets research at US Bank’s Asset Management Group. “We’ll want to see follow-through next month to ensure there wasn’t too much noise from the shutdown.”