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 rose marginally Thursday after a lighter-than-expected inflation reading propelled the major averages to record highs.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 futures were both fractionally higher, while Nasdaq-100 futures rose 0.1%.
Shares of Walmart were up more than 4% in early Thursday trading after the retailer reported better-than-expected quarterly results.
The three major averages closed at records on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 breaking above 5,300 for the first time.
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.”
