Traders walk the floor during morning trading at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on May 14, 2024 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Stock futures ticked higher Thursday after a lighter-than-expected inflation reading propelled the major averages to record highs.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 65 points, or 0.16%. S&P 500 futures ticked higher by 0.14%, while Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 0.2%.
In regular trading, all three major averages closed at records. The Dow climbed 0.88%, while the broad-market S&P 500 gained 1.17%, ending the session above 5,300 for the first time. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed higher by 1.40%.
That performance was helped by the April reading of the consumer price index, a broad measure of how much goods and services cost at the cash register, which increased 0.3% from the prior month. That was slightly below the Dow Jones estimate of 0.4%. Consumer prices still grew 3.4% from a year ago.
“The market is recognizing that the inflation dynamics look favorable,” Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management, told CNBC. “Combine that with some of the takeaways from the earnings season, which were pretty healthy earnings and favorable outlooks overall, the market was just coiled to look to interpret news as good news.”
“[That] is the hallmark of a bull market,” he added, “to take take something that could be two-sided and call it good.”
On Thursday, investors have a batch of economic data to look forward to, including the widely watched weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. Eastern and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve manufacturing index.
Investors are also looking forward to Walmart earnings, due before the bell, along with Under Armour and Baidu.