US stocks tick up ahead of important economic data

US stocks opened slightly higher Tuesday (Aug 29), as investors waited for a slew of data on the health of the world’s largest economy in the coming days.

Readings for economic growth, jobs, consumer confidence and even the US Federal Reserve’s favoured inflation metric are all due over the next week, which will help investors assess how the US economy is faring.

Around 15 minutes into trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2 per cent at 34,612.07.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.3 per cent to 4,447.07, as did the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index, which climbed to 13,743.83.

The forthcoming data will be especially useful for the Fed as it weighs another interest rate hike in September to tackle US inflation, which remains above its two-percent target.

However, traders see it as much more likely that the Fed will move to hold rates steady at their current elevated level – the highest in over two decades – to see how inflation is impacted, according to data from CME Group.

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Among individual stocks, shares of the US consumer durables giant 3M continued to climb Tuesday on news it had settled with military veterans over faulty earplugs for $6 billion.

Its shares were up 1.9 per cent in early trading Tuesday, after rising by more than 5 per cent on Monday. AFP