That’s above the Fed’s target of 2 per cent, but traders believe not by enough to convince the Fed that inflation is the bigger problem now for the economy than the slowing job market. The Fed has just one tool to fix either problem, and moving interest rates to help one often means hurting the other in the short term.
“Right now, inflation is a key subplot, but the labour market is still the main story,” according to Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
On Wall Street, Centene helped lead the market with a jump of 10.7 per cent. The health care company said its business results through August are tracking with the profit forecast it had earlier given for the year. That’s more than analysts are forecasting.
Opendoor Technologies soared 67.2 per cent after the company, which helps people buy and sell homes online, said it hired Shopify’s chief operating officer, Kaz Nejatian, as its CEO. It also announced a $US40 million ($60 million) investment by one of its founders and an investment firm tied to another founder.
Kroger rose 1.3 per cent after the grocer reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its revenue came up just shy of forecasts. It also raised the bottom end of its forecasted range for profit over the full year.
Warner Bros. Discovery surged 28.5 per cent following a report that Paramount Skydance is considering making an offer to buy the entertainment company. Paramount Skydance, which was formed by Skydance’s purchase of Paramount in August, jumped 8.1 per cent.
Helping to keep the market’s gain in check was Oracle, which fell 6.5 per cent. But that gave back only a bit of its monster surge from the day before, when it soared nearly 36 per cent for its best day since 1992 on excitement about multibillion dollar contracts won amid the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.
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In stock markets abroad, European indexes ticked higher after the European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged at its latest meeting. The European bank is on pause following an earlier set of cuts, and its president, Christine Lagarde, said future moves are “not on a predetermined path.”
France’s CAC 40 rose 0.8 per cent, and Germany’s DAX returned 0.3 per cent.
In Asia, indexes were mostly higher. Stocks jumped 1.7 per cent in Shanghai but fell 0.4 per cent in Hong Kong.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.02 per cent from 4.04 per cent late Wednesday.
AP
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