Inflation pushes US indices to two-year lows

Dusseldorf, Frankfurt The prospect of a sustained rate hike by the Fed only sent Wall Street down briefly on Thursday. The US standard value index Dow Jones quickly turned positive and climbed from its daily low by around 1000 points.

In early afternoon trading, the index of 30 major industrial stocks was up 2.2 percent to 29,686 points after falling to 28,660 points in early trading. Similarly, the broad-based S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained about 1.5 percent each.

The initial sell-off was a bit overdone, said Shawn Cruz, chief investment strategist at brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. He thinks it’s a good sign that there are no follow-up sales. However, Craig Erlam, market analyst at brokerage house Oanda, warned against declaring a trend reversal. “This is really not an inflation report that you want to see.”