Wall St mixed in choppy trade as investors assess inflation data

By Amruta Khandekar and Bansari Mayur Kamdar

(Reuters) -Wall Street's main indexes were mixed on Thursday as investors assessed a key inflation reading and comments from Federal Reserve officials to gauge the timing of potential interest rate cuts.

A Commerce Department report showed U.S. prices picked up in January in line with expectations amid strong gains in the costs of services, but the annual increase in inflation was the smallest in three years.

Traders added to bets that the Fed will cut interest rates in June after the PCE data.

However, U.S. stocks lost momentum after a positive start to the day.

Atlanta Fed President and voting member Raphael Bostic stressed on a data-dependent approach to monetary policy, saying it was going to be a bumpy path to the Fed's 2% inflation target.

"Fed policymakers are still primarily focused on inflation, and will see the pickup of the core PCE deflator in January as confirming their inclination to slow-roll rate cuts," said Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank.

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee on Thursday said he believes there's still room for increases in labor supply to bring down inflation further.

Reports on consumer and producer prices earlier in February, which signaled sticky inflation as well as a guarded approach from Fed policymakers, had led investors to push back expectations of rate cuts to June.

At the beginning of this year, traders were betting on March as the starting point for the Fed's easing cycle.

Meanwhile, initial jobless claims for the week ended Feb. 24 stood at 215,000, greater than expectations of 210,000, according to economists polled by Reuters.

At 11:52 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 89.69 points, or 0.23%, at 38,859.33, the S&P 500 was up 3.02 points, or 0.06%, at 5,072.78, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 33.10 points, or 0.21%, at 15,980.83.

All three major Wall Street indexes are on track for their fourth straight monthly advance, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq in the lead, thanks to robust quarterly earnings and a stellar rally driven by optimism around artificial intelligence.

Seven of the 11 major S&P 500 sub-indexes advanced on Thursday, with rate-sensitive real estate stocks leading gains.

Megacap stocks were mixed, with AI darling Nvidia outperforming peers with an advance of 1.6%.

Keeping the Dow under pressure was a 1.9% decline in shares of Boeing after a report of a probe by the Department of Justice.

Snowflake slumped 19.8% after the cloud data analytics company forecast first-quarter product revenue below Wall Street estimates.

Paramount Global climbed 3.1% as the media conglomerate posted a surprise profit on streaming gains.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress will make a last-minute attempt to avert a partial government shutdown on Thursday.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.27-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.52-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 49 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 113 new highs and 40 new lows.

(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar and Bansari Mayur Kamdar in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Johann M Cherian; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Shounak Dasgupta and Maju Samuel)