WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. consumer prices increased 0.2% in January, led by large gains in food, medical care and tobacco prices, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.
Core inflation, which ignores movements in food and energy prices, rose 0.3% in January, the biggest increase since June.
The greater-than-expected consumer price index could lessen the odds that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates.
The core CPI is up 2.7% in the past year, a notch higher than the 2.6% year-on-year rate in November and December.
The CPI is up 2.1% in the past 12 months.
Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were looking for a 0.1% gain on the CPI and for a 0.2% gain on the core CPI.
In December, the CPI rose 0.4%, while the core CPI was up 0.1%.
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a record closing level, as reassuring comments from Federal Reserve Governor Susan Bies, along with upbeat results from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and merger news, helped offset disappointing earnings from Home Depot Inc.
Bies' comments "led the market to believe that the Fed is not in tightening mode right now," while she also sounded reassuring "about the housing market and credit markets," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.
"We've also got more good news than bad news overall," he said.
After falling by as much as 60 points in morning trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 19 points to end at 12,786, a new record close. It earlier reached a new intraday high of 12,795.
The S&P 500 rose 4 points to 1,459, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 16 points to 2,513, with both indices ending at more than six-year highs.
The Dow was lifted by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which rose 3.7% as the giant retailer's latest quarterly earnings came in ahead of expectations.
Investors also kept an eye on Hewlett-Packard, a Dow component and one of the leaders of the tech sector, which posted earnings after the close of trading. HP finished up 0.8%.
Among other blue-chips, Home Depot fell 0.2%. The retailer's latest report showed it is bearing the impact of waning activity in the home-building sector, leading to a 28% year-over-year decline in fourth-quarter profit and an earnings miss.
The market saw early weakness as investors consolidated gains from last week. But with oil falling, news of a tie-up between Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, and other merger news, the market came out of its morning doldrums.
Meanwhile, forecasts of warmer weather hit crude oil prices -- crude for March delivery fell $1.32 to close at $58.07 a barrel - and weighed on energy shares. "Energy is an influential sector and it tends to exacerbate overall weakness when it falls," said Todd Clark, director of trading at Nollenberger Capital Partners.
But falling oil also helped lift technology shares, as well as transportation and the consumer sector on Tuesday.
NEW YORK ? The record-setting run on Wall Street is starting to add up to real money.
The Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, the broadest measure of the U.S. stock market, has recouped all of its dollar losses suffered in the 2000-02 bear market. As of Wednesday, it had rebounded 100% and regained $8.8 trillion in market value ? more than the combined annual GDP of Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom ? since its Oct. 9, 2002, low.
Confirming the strength of this so-called U.S. "wealth" measure were the record highs set Wednesday by a swath of other domestic stock market indexes. For the first time since March 17, 1998, the Dow Jones industrial, transportation and utilities averages all set records on the same day, suggesting that the economy is in good shape.
And further confirmation of the market's broad, inclusive participation came in the form of a record close for the NYSE composite index, which measures the performance of all U.S. common stocks, foreign shares and real estate investment trusts listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
"Each time you see another index hit a new high, it validates what is going on and confirms that the rally is, indeed, broad-based," says Steven Foresti, managing director and head of investment research at Wilshire Consulting.
The broad U.S. stock market has risen four consecutive years after losing nearly half of its value from 2000 to 2002. The continued gains on Wall Street, however, are worrisome to some because the market is now enjoying its second-longest streak ever without either a 2% or 10% correction from a prior high. There is also growing concern that investors may be getting overly optimistic about the market's moneymaking abilities.
"A correctionless market breeds complacency," says James Stack, president of InvesTech Research.
But even Stack admits that the market continues to defy skeptics and move higher because all the ingredients of a bull market remain in place. The big drivers ? stable interest rates and a not-too-hot, not-too-cold economy ? were reinforced Wednesday by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in testimony on Capitol Hill.
"Investors have deciphered all the economic data and have given a thumbs up across the board," says Timothy Vick, senior portfolio manager at Sanibel Captiva Trust. He says investors are now more confident that the Fed will not raise short-term interest rates this year, which makes stocks far more attractive.
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