U.S. stocks drifted lower Tuesday, with investors reluctant to make big bets a day ahead of inflation data that may decide the fate of the recent summer rally.What’s happening
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.05%
was up less than 2 points at 32,834.
The S&P 500
SPX,
-0.40%
was off 11 points, or 0.3%, at 4,129.
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-1.31%
was off 122 points, or 1%, at 12,522.
On Monday, the Dow eked out a gain of 0.1%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each lost 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite is up 18.8% from its 2022 low touched in mid-June, but remains down 19.2% for the year to date.
What’s driving markets Major indexes were becalmed near recent highs Tuesday ahead of the July consumer-price index report on Wednesday. Hopes that inflation may have peaked and that the Federal Reserve may thus be able to adopt a less aggressive monetary tightening cycle has helped the S&P 500 index bounce nearly 13% from its 2022 low touched in mid-June. Economists forecast that a dip in energy prices will help headline year-over-year consumer price index for July fall from the multidecade high of 9.1% to 8.7%. A drop Monday in the New York Fed’s measure of consumer inflation expectations was taken as a positive sign, but strong wage growth data in Friday’s July jobs report and a large rise in unit labor costs in data Tuesday were a source of unease, analysts said. “A hotter-than-anticipated CPI report will pressure markets this week. An in-line report could be taken in stride as investors have priced in a 75 basis po …