S&P 500 futures edged higher on Thursday as oil prices declined and traders digested more inflation data as well as a slew of fresh earnings reports. Futures tied to the broad market index were up 0.2%, while Nasdaq-100 futures traded around the flatline. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures added 174 points, or 0.3%. Cisco Systems was a key laggard of the day, falling about 7% in premarket trading after the company’s latest quarterly results failed to impress investors. Cerebras and Coherent also moved lower in premarket trading after earnings updates overnight, with the former plummeting 15% and the latter dropping 6%. Wall Street got another look at U.S. inflation on Thursday, with the July reading of the U.S. producer price index—which gauges what wholesalers pay for raw goods and materials—coming in unchanged. Economists polled by the Dow Jones had called for an increase of 0.2% in the month. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core PPI rose 0.2%, just below the gain of 0.3% economists expected. The lighter-than-expected PPI report comes a day after an in-line reading on the consumer price index. CPI for July increased by 0.1% month over month, matching expectations. The tame report gave the S&P 500 a boost, with the benchmark closing higher for the first time in three sessions. The report led to traders paring expectations for a rate hike in September. “Still, the odds favor a rate increase in either October or December, after monetary policy officials take time to gauge the temperature on both sides of the central bank’s mandate,” said José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers. Treasury yields edged lower as traders parsed inflation data for July that matched expectations and showed price increases may have continued to cool. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note—the key benchmark for pricing mortgages, auto loans, and credit card debt—was 1 basis point lower at 4.6704%. The 2-year Treasury note yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate policy, was off more than 2 basis points at 4.1738%. The longer-dated 30-year Treasury bond yield held steady at 5.2371%. In Asia, markets ended mixed. Kospi rose 3.6% to enter a bull market. Mainland China’s CSI 300 declined 0.57%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 1.16%. Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.23%. Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.23% to 9,188.50. Oil prices fell Thursday as investors weighed waning global demand against the ongoing supply disruption in the Middle East. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were down 2% at $81.61 per barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading 1.8% lower at $87.40 per barrel. The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that global oil demand was set to fall further than previously expected this year, amid a deepening impact from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. “Renewed hostilities and maritime disruptions” are undermining efforts to boost global oil supply, the IEA said. Supply remained 6.3 million barrels a day lower year-on-year in July. Spot gold was little changed Thursday after the release of the latest report on wholesale prices for the month of July showed no pickup in inflationary pressure in the economy. Earlier, precious metal investors had booked ​profits after Wednesday’s softer-than-expected U.S. consumer price ​inflation figures slashed expectations of near-term Federal Reserve rate hikes and sent the non-yielding metal’s prices to a more than two-month high. U.S. gold futures for December delivery fell 0.4% to $4,451 an ounce. “Gold has reversed its recent rise, slipping below important chart support at $4,387 as ‌profit-taking set in after a stellar run,” said independent analyst Ross Norman. “Arguably the market was over-positioned ahead of soft inflation data—having ​bought the rumor, it is now selling the fact,” Norman said. Despite setbacks, gold is keen to resume its bull run, but that rally is on hold for now as geopolitics currently favor the dollar ⁠as the go-to safe haven, he added.