U.S. stocks are rising as investors await inflation report

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are rising as investors anticipate the release of June’s consumer price index on Wednesday.

At 10:57 ET (14:57 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 121 points or 0.4%, while the S&P 500 was up 0.2% and the NASDAQ Composite was up 0.2%.

Watching for signs that inflation is cooling

Investors are hoping that a cooling off of inflation could convince the Federal Reserve to come to the end of its interest rate increases in the near future.

Wednesday’s report is expected to show the pace of inflation has eased off considerably from last year, though prices are still higher than the Fed’s target rate.

Futures traders are expecting the Fed to raise rates another quarter of a percentage point this month after pausing at their June meeting. But then expectations for later this year start to diverge. Some see another rate hike this fall.

Investors are also listening to what a spate of Fed officials are saying in appearances this week to get any clues on the central bank’s thinking heading into the meeting this month.

Nasdaq rebalance after rally leads to overconcentration

An end to the Fed’s rate hiking could boost tech stocks, which rallied in the first half of the year. Nasdaq is planning to rebalance its 100 index to adjust the weightings after the megacap names led to overconcentration.

One tech giant, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), was rising 1.3% as it kicked off its annual Prime Day online sale, something that has inspired other retailers to launch sales events of their own. Target (NYSE:TGT) is also having a promotion, as is Walmart (NYSE:WMT).

Bank earnings coming up

Later this week, big banks will start to report second-quarter earnings, expected to benefit from rising rates on loans. Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) shares were up 0.7% after regulators said it double dipped on consumer fees and opened fake accounts, ordering it to pay consumers $100 million and millions of dollars more in fines.