Wall Street is set to start the day higher on Wednesday, as inflation figures showed a slowdown in price rises, bolstering expectations of an imminent rate cut.

Half an hour before the opening, futures contracts on the main New York indices were up by 0.3% to 0.4%, heralding a green start to the session.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), published this morning by the Labor Department, rose by 3.4% in April compared with the same month in 2023, an annual rate 0.1 points lower than in March.

Excluding food and energy, the core retail price index was down 0.2 points on March, reaching 3.6% last month, thanks in particular to the fall in used car prices.

"This is a step in the right direction", commented Commerzbank analysts.

These data, which attest to a steady decline in inflation, reinforce the scenario of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve in September.

According to the CME Group's FedWatch barometer, over 52% of markets now expect monetary easing in the autumn, compared with 45% a month ago.

The statistic enabled Wall Street futures to increase their gains, and also had the effect of pushing the dollar back against the euro, which returned to the 1.0860 level.

The yield on the 10-year bond fell by almost ten basis points to 4.35%, the lowest in over a month, also reacting to the lower-than-expected inflation figures.

Retail sales and the Empire State index were the other two statistics of the day.

Retail sales were flat on a sequential basis in April, at $705.2 billion, whereas the market was expecting them to rise slightly.

As for the Empire State index measuring industrial activity in the New York area, it came out at -15.6 in May, compared with -14.3 last month, meaning that the pace of contraction in activity was slightly accentuated.

These indicators, which point to a slowdown in US growth, also argue in favor of further Fed support measures.

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