Stocks Finish Roughly Flat After Inflation Data

Stocks staged an afternoon rally to erase most of their earlier declines Thursday after new data suggested inflation might not be cooling quite as quickly as some investors hoped.

The S&P 500 fell roughly 0.1%, after ending Wednesday just 0.3% below its record closing high set just over two years ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up around 15 points, or less than 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite was essentially flat. All three indexes were still on track to post weekly gains after dropping in the first week of the year.