Wall Street advanced ahead of key US inflation numbers

Stock markets in New York rose again on Monday, continuing last week’s gains. Investors on Wall Street were looking ahead to Tuesday’s release of key inflation numbers, mainly from the United States. This should show whether US inflation peaked in August. Also, heavyweight Apple was one of the winners at nearly 4 percent after good pre-sales reports of the new iPhone 14 Pro Max released last week.

The US Federal Reserve has already raised interest rates significantly to tackle inflation and is expected to do so again later this month. If the rise in consumer prices shows some cooling, the Federal Reserve may need to raise interest rates less in the future. There were earlier fears in the stock markets that strong interest rate hikes would lead to an economic recession, but those fears have recently faded into the background.

The Dow-Jones index rose 0.7 percent to close at 32,381.34 points. The broader S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent to 4,110.41 points, while the tech exchange Nasdaq rose 1.3 percent to 12,266.41. Wall Street posted its first weekly gain last week after three straight weeks of losses.

Twitter lost 1.7 percent. The social media company said it did not violate the terms of the acquisition agreement with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Musk’s legal team on Friday cited a $7.75 million payment to a whistleblower via Twitter as a reason to pull out of the deal. Musk had $44 billion for the messaging service in April, but wanted to scrap the acquisition in July. Twitter has very few real people and many bots among its users.

Walt Disney advanced 1 percent. Activist investor Daniel Loeb of hedge fund Third Point said on Twitter that Disney’s sports channel ESPN is no longer pushing for a sale. The entertainment and media group’s CEO Bob Chapek announced during a conference call last weekend that he has big plans for ESPN.

The euro was at $1.0116, compared to $1.0128 in Europe. U.S. oil prices rose 1.2 percent to $87.87 a barrel. Brent crude was up 1.3 percent at $94.08 a barrel.