S&P 500 rises to record after more encouraging inflation data

The S&P 500 rose to a fresh all-time intraday high on Thursday as oil prices declined and traders digested more inflation data.

The broad market index was up 0.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.8%, boosted by gains in Meta Platforms, Micron Technology and Netflix. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 67 points, or 0.1%, however.

Brent crude futures shed 2% to trade at $86.98 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate futures slid 2% to $81.14 per barrel. The moves come as traders weighed falling oil demand while the U.S.-Iran war continues.

Wall Street got another look at U.S. inflation on Thursday, with the July reading of the U.S. producer price index — which gauges what wholesalers pay for raw goods and materials — coming in unchanged. Economists polled by Dow Jones had called for an increase of 0.2% on the month. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core PPI rose 0.2%, just below the gain of 0.3% economists expected.

The lighter-than-expected PPI report comes a day after an in-line reading on the consumer price index.

CPI for July increased by 0.1% month over month, matching expectations. The tame report gave the S&P 500 a boost, with the benchmark closing higher for the first time in three sessions. The report led to traders paring expectations for a rate hike in September.