news/GOOGL/2023.01.11/Wall St gains with all eyes on key inflation data.txt

(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
markets, click LIVE/ or type LIVE/ in a news window)*Airlines gain as U.S. flights slowly resume after FAA
outage*Bed Bath & Beyond extends gains*Indexes up: Dow 0.30%, S&P 0.62%, Nasdaq 0.99%Jan 11 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes rose on
Wednesday with investors keenly awaiting a crucial inflation
reading due later in the week for more clarity on the Federal
Reserve's rate hike trajectory.Nearly all the major S&P 500 sectors rose, with real estate
up 2.4% and in the lead, while consumer discretionary
and technology stocks gained 1.9% and 0.6%,
respectively.Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Tesla
Inc were up between 2.2% and 4.3%, among the top boosts
to the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq.Gains in the megacap growth firms, which had lost between
39% and 65% in value last year, come as markets face renewed
optimism in 2023 on hopes that slowing inflationary pressures
could pave the way for a less hawkish stance from the U.S.
central bank.The highly awaited inflation report from the Labor
Department on Thursday is expected to show U.S. consumer prices
likely grew 6.5% year-on-year in December, moderating from a
7.1% rise in November."The tech leaders last year got beat up really bad and
people are now wondering, did we over-do it," said Joe Saluzzi,
co-manager of trading at Themis Trading."But you're going to need earnings to support more bullish
theory. The bar is a little bit lower (for earnings), which
could be decent for the stock market."This week marks the start of the earnings season for S&P 500
companies, with Wall Street's biggest banks expected to report
lower quarterly profits amid risks of a recession due to
monetary policy tightening.Markets are hoping that the Fed could soon pause its rate
hiking cycle, though recent comments by some policymakers have
supported the view that the Fed needs to remain aggressive in
raising interest rates to fight inflation.Money market participants see a 75% chance the Fed will
raise the benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 4.50%-4.75% in
February, and see rates peaking at 4.94% by June.At 11:58 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
was up 101.44 points, or 0.30%, at 33,805.54, the S&P 500
was up 24.13 points, or 0.62%, at 3,943.38, and the Nasdaq
Composite was up 106.63 points, or 0.99%, at 10,849.26.Home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond Inc jumped
45.9%, after logging gains in the previous session despite bleak
quarterly results as retail investors speculated it could be a
potential acquisition target and as short-sellers closed out
bets.Shares of airlines such as American Airlines Group Inc
and Spirit Airlines Inc reversed premarket
losses to rise between 0.9% and 1.9% as U.S. flights were slowly
beginning to resume departures and a ground stop was lifted
after the Federal Aviation Administration scrambled to fix a
system outage overnight.Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 3.15-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and a 1.97-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.The S&P index recorded 10 new 52-week highs and one new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 56 new highs and 12 new lows.
(Reporting by Shubham Batra and Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru;
Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)