Wall Street edged slightly higher on Thursday, in a market that was nonetheless cautious ahead of the publication of the eagerly-awaited inflation figures.

In late morning trading, the Dow Jones advanced 0.2% to 37,597.9 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4% to 14,918.4 points.918.4 points.

A wait-and-see attitude continues to prevail ahead of the December consumer price index statistics, which could prompt or discourage the Federal Reserve from accelerating its rate cuts this year.

The Fed's more accommodating stance has enabled the Dow Jones index to rebound by more than 11% over the past three months, but the upward trend has lost steam since the start of the year, against a backdrop of solid economic indicators.

Investors are waiting to see what direction the inflation report will take, but also the fourth-quarter corporate results, which will start to fall on Friday with the banking groups.

Reflecting investors' indecision, the S&P's 11 major sector indices were generally split between gains and losses.

The energy sector, down 1%, failed to benefit from the strength of crude oil prices following the announcement of a modest weekly rise in US crude oil inventories last week.

Non-essential consumer goods, on the other hand, performed well (+0.8%), as did technology and communications stocks (+0.7%).

Investors did not react to the announcement of a slight decrease in wholesale inventories, which fell by 0.2% in November after dropping by 0.3% in October, according to the Commerce Department.

Pending a busier weekend, bond yields continued to hover around the 4% mark, but timidly started to fall again, to 4.01%.

On the foreign exchange market, the dollar retreated against the euro ahead of US inflation statistics, enabling the single currency to return to the vicinity of 1.0970.

Copyright (c) 2024 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.