Stocks opened and closed in positive territory, though the path to the finish line was choppy. A mixed reading on wholesale inflation pressured the main benchmarks throughout the morning, but a rally in several mega-cap stocks lifted them higher in afternoon trading.
Ahead of the open, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures what businesses are paying suppliers for goods, increased 0.2% month-over-month in August. Year-over-year, headline PPI was up 1.7% – the slowest pace since February.
