US STOCKS finished sharply higher on Tuesday (Mar 12), as traders shook off a hotter-than-expected inflation report and dived back into tech shares.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.6 per cent at 39,005.49, while the broad-based S&P 500 closed 1.1 per cent higher at 5,175.27.

The tech-rich Nasdaq shot up more than 1.5 per cent to close at 16,265.64 – fuelled by companies including Nvidia and Meta, which rose by 7.1 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively.

The cloud computing company Oracle, meanwhile, saw its share price jump by 11.8 per cent after announcing that its recent earnings beat expectations.

February consumer inflation data published Tuesday morning showed a small, but notable, acceleration from a month earlier.

“The market today breathes a sigh of relief that the threat of inflation is coming down,” Adam Sarhan from 50 Park Investments, said.

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“Inflation has not gone away yet, but the trend has shifted from a rampant inflation, and now it is levelling out,” he said.

The inflation print is likely to keep the Federal Reserve on hold as the central bank mulls the right time to start lowering its key lending rate from the current 23-year high of between 5.25 to 5.50 per cent.

“Investors are no longer petrified about higher inflation,” Sarhan said, adding: “They can look to other things such as earnings to send stocks up.” AFP