Stock Market Today: Stocks higher with inflation on deck; Oracle surges

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U.S. equity futures moved higher Tuesday, while Treasury yields and the dollar held steady, as investors picked through details of a key February inflation reading that could cement market bets on a June rate cut from the Federal Reserve.

Updated at 8:44 AM EDT

Inflation uptick

A mixed bag of February inflation data hasn't had a downward impact on futures as yet, with headline CPI quickening to 3.2% and the core reading easing to 3.8%.

Monthly readings nudged higher on a headline basis, but held steady at the core, suggesting Fed Chair Jerome Powell's assessment that more data is needed to confirm the start of rate cuts, but added that "we're not far" from reaching that point.

Stocks are adding modestly to gains, with the S&P 500 expecting a 30 point opening bell gain and the Dow called 130 points higher.

CPI for all items rose 0.4% in February; gasoline and shelter up https://t.co/dJyJeKlXDJ #CPI #BLSdata— BLS-Labor Statistics (@BLS_gov) March 12, 2024

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Stocks finished modestly lower on Monday, led to the downside once again by the tech-focused Nasdaq, thanks in part to a slight move higher in Treasury yields tied to concern that last week's better-than-expected jobs report could suggest inflation pressures remain deeply embedded in the world's biggest economy.

Economists, however, expect the February CPI report, due at 8:30 am Eastern Time, to provide a mixed picture of price pressures, with the headline reading rising to 0.4% on the month but holding at 3.1% on an annual basis.

The closely tracked core reading, meanwhile, is likely to slow modestly on both a monthly and annual basis, readings that are likely to confirm market bets that the Federal Reserve will begin the first of its three forecast rate cuts at its June policy meeting.

"The CPI report today won’t alone determine whether the Fed eases in May; a great deal more data will be released before the FOMC meeting (but) markets will be unhappy at an overshoot," said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Benchmark 10-year note yields were holding at 4.092% ahead of today's inflation report and a $39 billion auction of new paper later in the session. Two-year notes were marked at 4.539%.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six global currencies, was marked 0.01% higher at $102.872.

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On Wall Street, Oracle  (ORCL)  shares were a notable early mover, rising more than 13% in premarket trading. The cloud-focused database-management group posted better-than-expected fiscal-third-quarter earnings and said demand for its Gen2 AI infrastructure "substantially exceeds supply."

Boeing  (BA)  shares, meanwhile, extended declines in the premarket, falling to a fresh four-month low. The drop followed a New York Times report that the planemaker failed 33 of 89 audit tests conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration on 737 Max processes after the Alaska Airlines door-panel incident in January. 

In broader markets, futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 are indicating an opening-bell gain of around 15 points, with the Nasdaq called 92 points higher. Futures tied to the Dow suggest a 4 point dip.

In overseas markets, Europe's Stoxx 600 was marked 0.3% higher in early Frankfurt trading. Softer-than-expected wage data in Britain added to hopes of a Bank of England rate cut, sending the FTSE 100 1.01% higher in London.

Overnight in Asia, a muted economic outlook from Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda snuffed out bets on an early end to negative rate policies. That clipped gains for the Nikkei 225, which ended 0.06% lower on the session.

Solid gains for stocks in China, meanwhile, helped the regionwide MSCI ex-Japan index rise 0.9% into the close of trading.

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