World News | Stock Market Today: Wall Street Climbs as Stocks Worldwide Rise

New York, Sep 14 (AP) Stocks are rising on Wall Street on Thursday after a blizzard of reports suggested the US economy is still humming, though inflation may be too.

The S&P 500 was 0.7 per cent higher in midday trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 243 points, or 0.7 per cent, at 34,819, as of 11 am Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8 per cent higher.

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Some of the strongest action was in the bond market, where Treasury yields swung in opposite directions several times following the mixed economic data.

One report said US shoppers spent more at retailers last month than economists expected. Such spending has been a linchpin keeping the economy out of a recession, but it could also be encouraging retailers to keep trying to raise prices further.

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The strong spending is a result of a remarkably resilient job market, which has withstood a steep jump in interest rates since early last year. A separate report Thursday morning said fewer workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than expected, which implies the number of layoffs remains low.

A third report said prices getting paid at the wholesale level rose more last month than economists expected.

That could be a discouraging signal for households if the higher-than-expected inflation gets passed on to shoppers at the consumer level.

To try to get inflation back down to its 2 per cent target, the Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates sharply. The hope on Wall Street is that a slowdown in inflation since last summer means the Fed is done with its rate hikes, which slow the economy and hurt investment prices.

Treasury yields initially jumped following Thursday's reports on fears they could push the Fed to raise rates again or at least to keep rates higher for longer. But economists pointed out much of last month's acceleration in wholesale inflation was due to higher fuel prices, which can shift direction sharply and quickly.

Ignoring those and other particularly volatile prices, underlying inflation trends in Thursday's report were closer to economists' expectations. That echoed a report from a day earlier on inflation at the consumer level, which showed overall inflation accelerated to 3.7 per cent in August largely because of a leap in fuel prices.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury initially jumped to nearly 4.30 per cent immediately after the economic data's release Thursday morning. But it later eased back, only to swing again. It was sitting at 4.25 per cent, roughly where it was late Wednesday.

The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, also bounced up, down and back again following the reports. It was sitting at 4.96 per cent, down from 4.98 per cent late Wednesday, after briefly leaping above 5.02 per cent.

Traders pared back expectations for the Fed to raise rates again some time this year, though they're still betting on a nearly 42 per cent chance of that, according to data from CME Group.

Optimism that the Fed may be done hiking rates may be overdone, warned Mike Loewengart, head of model portfolio construction at Morgan Stanley Global Investment Office.

“The Fed is still likely to remain on hold next week, but if the economy continues to surprise to the upside, all bets are off as to what they'll do after their final two policy meetings of the year,” he said.

In the stock market, shares of chip designer Arm Holdings are set to begin trading later in the day. It priced its stock at USD 51 per share in an initial offering, The offering valued Arm at USD 54.5 billion and could be an encouraging signal for the IPO market, which has slowed since the stock market began tumbling early last year on fears about higher interest rates.

Stocks of energy producers were helping to lead the market after oil prices rallied. Crude has been climbing for months as oil-producing countries try to support its price by curtailing their supplies. A barrel of US crude rose 1.6 per cent to USD 89.90. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.8 per cent to USD 93.52.

That helped Exxon Mobil to rise 1.5 per cent and Marathon Oil to rise 2.7 per cent.

Hewlett Packard slumped 2.4 per cent after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway revealed it trimmed its stake in the personal computer and printer company. Berkshire still owns 115.5 million shares in HP after selling 5.5 million earlier this week.

Delta Air Lines, meanwhile, became the latest airline to cut its profit forecast because of higher costs. It said higher-than-expected costs for fuel and maintenance are cutting into its earnings, and its stock slipped 0.2 per cent.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe after the European Central Bank raised interest rates again Thursday but made statements that some economists saw as a hint that it will now go on hold for a while.

The hike is supposed to help undercut inflation among the countries that use the euro currency, but it adds pressure to an economy already seen at risk for a recession.

France's CAC 40 rose 1.3 per cent, and Germany's DAX returned 0.9 per cent.

Indexes also climbed across much of Asia, with Japan's Nikkei 225 up 1.4 per cent. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)