Wall Street is set to open higher on Wednesday following the release of consumer price figures, which show a reassuring trend in US inflation.

Half an hour before the opening, futures contracts on the main New York indices are up 0.8% to 0.9%, heralding a green start to the session.

The Labor Department announced this morning that the consumer price index (CPI) remained unchanged in May, after rising by 0.3% in April.

Analysts were expecting an increase of 0.1%.

The so-called core CPI, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, rose by 0.2% last month, in line with expectations.

This figure had not been this low since August 2021.

Markets were all the more sensitive to these figures as the Federal Reserve is due to deliver its much-anticipated monetary policy decisions in the afternoon.

These figures take some of the pressure off the Fed's shoulders for its next rate cut, possibly as early as September if inflation continues to fall.

Commerzbank's economists commented: "While this data is welcome news for the Fed, it will undoubtedly take more for it to start lowering interest rates by ensuring that inflation is back under control".

Even so, according to the CME's FedWatch tool, traders now estimate the probability of monetary easing in the autumn at over 61%, compared with around 46% yesterday.

Against this backdrop, May's inflation figures could have triggered a fresh bout of volatility, rather than a lull.

However, these rather controlled figures have pushed yields down, with ten-year paper falling back to 4.29%, and should logically benefit equities

Futures contracts on Wall Street indices actually increased their gains after the publication of this statistic.

The major indices should take advantage of this to set new records, as they did yesterday thanks to the positive reception given to Apple's latest advances in AI (+7.2%).

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