US stocks finish mixed after inflation uptick

FILE – A sign marking the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street is shown in New York’s Financial District on Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

Washington, United States — US stocks were little-changed on Wednesday, as traders digested fresh data pointing to a small and widely expected rise in inflation last month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 0.1 percent to 43,958.19, while the broad-based S&P 500 rose by less than 0.1 percent to 5,985.38.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.3 percent to 19,230.74.

READ: US consumer inflation picks up to 2.6% in October

There had been some concern ahead of Wednesday’s CPI report that it could be hotter than expected, B. Riley Wealth Management chief market strategist Art Hogan told AFP.

But in the end, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 2.6 percent in the 12 months to October, in line with economists’ expectations.

“The drivers in large part are the fact that the CPI came in very much in line with expectations, and some buzz in the markets yesterday,” he said. “So that coming in line was very much a positive.”

Among individual stocks, the chip designer AMD fell more than 3.0 percent as the company announced it was laying off around four percent of its employees.