
Stocks opened higher Thursday following the latest inflation data but didn't stay there for long. A late-afternoon speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell failed to reignite sentiment, with all three main benchmarks closing the day in the red.
Ahead of the opening bell, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures what businesses are paying subscribers for goods, increased 0.2% month over month in October. Year over year, the headline PPI was up 2.4% – the quickest pace since July.