Stock Market Today: S&P 500, Dow Futures Rise as July Inflation Cools

All right, green across the screen here so far this morning, S&P futures up 0.15%, Dow futures are up 0.28%, and the NASDAQ actually just turned red a second ago. They're basically at unchanged, but lower by 0.04%. Now, let's take a look at some cues from last session as well as what we can expect here today. We do, of course, have some stocks in focus for you. Real estate, information technology, and utility stocks rose on Wednesday along with other sectors except communication services, consumer discretionary, and materials. U.S. stock futures were mixed on Thursday as the Dow, S&P 500 indices rose while the NASDAQ declined following Wednesday's mixed close. After the consumer price index rose 3.4% year over year in July, down from June's 3.5% increase in line with expectations, investors will review July's PPI and ex-food and energy PPI data set to be released before the opening bell. We're expecting that in about 14 minutes. The U.S. and Iran made no progress on reviving their interim peace agreement, leaving the Strait of Hormuz heavily disrupted amid fresh attacks on commercial shipping, and that is according to Reuters. Geopolitical tensions remain elevated as President Trump took to social media declaring that quote, Iran is all talk and no action, the bully of the Middle East no longer. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury bond yielded 4.67% and the two-year bond was at 4.17%. The CME Group's FedWatchTool projection showed the market's pricing a 36.1% likelihood that the Federal Reserve hikes the current interest rates during its September meeting. That continues to drop, by the way. We've got several stocks in focus here for you today, and the first one is going to be an earnings report from yesterday. This is, of course, going to be Cisco. The ticker is CSCO, and shares tumbled by 5.63% in the pre-market on Thursday, despite better-than-expected financial results and guidance during the first fourth quarter, excuse me, of fiscal 2026. However, it implemented a global baseline price increase of 3.4% to 4% across its core hardware and technical services portfolio. The next stock on our list is going to be Cerebris Systems. The ticker is CBRS. It dropped 17.39% as it reported second quarter gap loss of $2.98 per share and revenue of $180.11 million. That missed the $194.2 million analyst estimate. However, core revenue more than doubled to $210 million, while its cloud business nearly quadrupled year over year. The next stock on our list is going to be Inflection. The ticker is INFQ, and it declined by 3.11% as it missed earnings per share estimates, but reported second quarter revenue of $12.63 million, which beat the estimate of $10.64 million. The next stock on our list is streaming giant Netflix. The ticker is NFLX. It was 1.83% higher after Bill Ackman disclosed a new position in the company with 3.15 million shares four years after exiting the stock with a $400 million loss. The last stock on our list is, in fact, going to be Applied Materials. The ticker is AMAT. Oh, my heavens to Betsy. The ticker is AMAT. Shares rose by 0.63% ahead of its earnings scheduled to be released after the closing bell. Analysts are expecting quarterly earnings of $3.39 per share on revenue of $9 billion.