Wall Street pushes higher at the opening bell

The final trading session of the week saw the main Wall Street indices start off on the front foot as the market looked to end the week on a positive note. In the early minutes of trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.44% higher at 27,654 while the S&P 500 climbed 0.39% to 3,352 and the Nasdaq rose 0.25% to 10,946. Markets may also have been lifted by another rise in US consumer price inflation in August, with the figure showing the cost of living increased 0.4% during the month, which was higher than forecast but was slower than the 0.6% rise in July. The biggest contributor to the rise was the cost of used cars and trucks, which climbed 5.4% in the sharpest rise in 51 years. A 2% rise in the cost of oil also added upward pressure, while a fall in grocery prices weighed on the figure. 7.40am: Wall Street tipped to move higher on Friday Following Thursday’s slump, the big US stock indices are all on course to start higher, according to the futures market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is predicated to bounce back with a 0.7% rise after a 1.45% decline overnight, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are both seen rebounding 0.8% following their respective 1.8% and 2% drops a day earlier. “While investors may appear cautious about extending the same break-neck advances in US equities, noting the still-lofty valuations and the elevated volatility, the desire to push US stocks higher is still tempting some to join the march north.  Perhaps the volatility so far this month is just another bump in the road for US stocks, as investors pursue new record highs, emboldened by the tremendous support from global central banks. With valuation metrics losing their influence over investment decisions, coupled with the rising influence of retail participants, markets are likely to be subjected to traders’ whims and fancies for a while longer”, said Han Tan, market analyst at FXTM. Among individual stocks, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is poised to rev up more than 3%, according to pre-market trade, fuelled by a positive note from analysts at UBS. Software titan Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) is up 4% in pre-market trade as results released outside of trading hours beat expectations, helped by revenue from key client Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM). Oracle has been talked about as a potential buyer for the US operations of TikTok. Five things to watch for on Friday: US consumer price inflation for August will be eyed following July’s figure which picked up to 1%, higher than expected and a recovery from May’s four-and-a-half year low of 0.1%. Inflationary pressures could be applied by gas prices as coronavirus restrictions are eased, encouraging fuel use and demand, as well as other areas such as food and medical care commodities Share price reaction from Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), which earlier had its target price hiked to US$325 from US$160 by analysts at UBS, who said they expected “significant” announcements from the firm’s upcoming battery event on September 22 Earnings data from grocery giant Kroger Co (NYSE:KR), which are expected to show the company’s benefitting from consumer stockpiling during the pandemic, as well as how the firm plans to keep the strength going in the longer term Share price movements from Peloton Interactive Inc (NASDAQ:PTON), which topped market expectations by delivering its first quarterly profit late on Thursday Possible ongoing political fallout after Democrats in the Senate blocked a Republican coronavirus stimulus package bill on Thursday