S&P 500 futures jump after encouraging inflation update, Oracle stock surge: Live updates

S&P 500 futures jumped on Wednesday after a reading on wholesale prices unexpectedly declined, a welcome development for investors clamoring for a Federal Reserve rate cut next week to boost the economy. Oracle shares led the gains with a more than 30% premarket surge following an eye-popping forecast tied to artificial intelligence.

Futures tied to the broad benchmark added 0.5%, as did Nasdaq 100 futures. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged higher. All three benchmarks closed at a record Tuesday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq had also scored a fresh all-time intraday high during the trading session.

Market sentiment was boosted following the latest producer price index reading, which showed that wholesale prices fell 0.1% in August. Economists polled by Dow Jones had estimated a 0.3% gain. Core PPI, which excludes food and energy prices, also declined 0.1%, while the Dow Jones forecast called for 0.3%.

The report serves as a positive sign regarding the state of inflation in the U.S. economy heading into Thursday’s more closely watched consumer price index reading.

Economists similarly expect the CPI report to show monthly increases of 0.3%, according to Dow Jones. This includes the headline all-items index as well as the core reading that excludes volatile food and energy prices. If this materializes, the annual headline CPI rate would be pushed up to 2.9%, though the core reading is expected to stay unchanged at 3.1%.

If these numbers come in around their estimates, all should go according to plan for the Federal Reserve to deliver another rate cut at its September meeting, said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management.

“In general, the inflation news over the next couple of days would have to be remarkably hotter than anticipated for anything to change the narrative that we’re getting a rate cut in September,” he said to CNBC.

Shares of Oracle surged 31% after the tech old guard reported that multicloud database revenue from Amazon, Google and Microsoft grew at a whopping rate of 1,529% in its last quarter, fueled by demand for AI servers. Investors were encouraged by the upbeat cloud forecast even as the latest earnings fell short.

“We signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers in Q1,” Oracle CEO Safra Catz said. “It was an astonishing quarter — and demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure continues to build.”

Nvidia and AMD were also higher in the premarket, as investors appeared to pile into the artificial intelligence trade once again.