US Stock Market: DJIA, S&P500 and Nasdaq turns green in early trade on Tuesday

Stocks are surging on Wall Street on Tuesday as oil prices dropped for a second day and inflation concerns eased.

The S&P 500 climbed 1.3% in morning trading after a report showed wholesale inflation took a pause last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 337 points, or 1%, at 33,282, as of 10:38 am Eastern time zone. The Nasdaq composite was 1.8% higher.

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The Federal Reserve is starting a two-day meeting on interest rates, and the market expects that it will increase its key short-term rate by 0.25 percentage points. The war in Ukraine affected prices for oil, wheat and other commodities the region produces. That’s raising the threat that already high inflation will persist and combine with a potentially stagnating economy.

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According to the data released on Tuesday, inflation was still very high at the wholesale level in February, but at least it wasn’t rising. Producer prices were 10% higher in February from a year earlier, the same rate as in January. Inflation rose 0.8% in February from January, versus forecasts for 0.9%. That’s a slowdown from January’s 1.2% month-over-month inflation.

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Economists say the numbers are still very high and will keep the Fed on track to raise rates on Wednesday, but at least they were not worse than expected.

Treasury yields sank immediately after the reports. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 2.10% from 2.14% late Monday. The two-year yield, which moves more on expectations for Fed policy changes, fell to 1.81% from 1.87%.

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US crude dropped 8.6% to 494.16 per barrel. It had briefly traded above $130 last week when concerns about disruptions to supplies because of the war in Ukraine were at their peak. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 8% to $98.34 per barrel.

A wide variety of stocks were helped by a fall in oil prices as the majority of companies in the S&P 500 were rising. Airlines led the path after several raised their forecasts for revenue this quarter. Americans Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines all surged over 9.3%. Tech and other high-growth stocks also recovered some of their earlier losses as Treasury yields fell.

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The London Metal Exchange will resume Nickel trading on Wednesday, just over a week after it was suspended when the price of the metal spiked unprecedentedly to over $100,000 per tonne.