Wall St set to rise as traders hold on to rate-cut bets after inflation data

By Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Shashwat Chauhan

(Reuters) - Wall Street was set to open higher on Tuesday, as traders held on to bets that the Federal Reserve will cut rates in the coming months following inflation data.

A Labor Department report showed the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.4% on a monthly basis in February, in line with the 0.4% increase expected by economists polled by Reuters.

Excluding volatile food and energy components, consumer prices increased 0.4% in February after rising by the same margin in January.

"We're on a glide path to a June rate cut and I don't think that there's any kind of change to that yet," said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth.

"I'm still expecting three rate cuts sometime this year."

Traders are now seeing a 70% chance of the first rate cut coming in June, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, from 71% ahead of the data.

Last month's stock market rally was slowed by data showing signs of a robust economy and sticky inflation, as traders pushed back their expectations on the timing of the Fed's first rate cut to June from March.

At 08:45 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 126 points, or 0.32%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 32.5 points, or 0.63%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 148.5 points, or 0.83%.

Megacap growth stocks advanced in premarket trading, led by AI darling Nvidia, which was up 2.8%.

Oracle jumped 12.3% on signs the firm was making progress in its plan to grab a share of the cloud-computing market, thanks to its tie-up with AI chip giant Nvidia.

Boeing shed 1.4% after a report said an audit by the Federal Aviation Administration found dozens of problems with the 737 MAX's production.

(Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Shristi Achar A and Ankika Biswas; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Pooja Desai)