A second straight cool inflation reading and a wave of upbeat bank earnings pushed the Dow and small caps higher by midday Wednesday, even as a selloff across memory-chip and hardware stocks dragged the Nasdaq 100 into the red.
Headline producer prices dropped 0.3% in June versus expectations for no change, with the annual rate cooling to 5.5% from 6.2%, while core PPI rose a smaller-than-expected 0.2%.
