Tesla, Amazon and other consumer discretionary stocks surge after tame inflation data

Shares of companies in the consumer discretionary sector got a big boost Tuesday from rather tame inflation data, which provided hopes that consumers will have more spending power if price increases slow. The Consumer Discretionary Select Sector ETF
XLY,
+3.37%
surged 1.5% toward a two-month high in premarket trading, after being up just 0.5% just before the consumer price index data was released. Among the ETF’s most-active components, shares of Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+6.12%
jumped 4.1% toward a one-month high after being up 1.8% pre-data; Amazon.com Inc.’s stock
AMZN,
+2.25%
climbed 1.7% toward a 19-month high, after being up 0.5% before the data; and Ford Motor Co. shares
F,
+5.91%
gained 0.7%, after inching up 0.1% pre-data. Shares of consumer staples companies, or those that sell what people need more than what they want, also got a lift from CPI, as shares of Walmart Inc.
WMT,
-0.02%
tacked on 0.3%, of Target Corp.
TGT,
+4.32%
rose 1.2% and of Costco Wholesale Corp.
COST,
+2.17%
tacked on 0.4%; just before the data, Walmart’s stock was up 0.2%, Target’s was up 0.8% and Costco’s was up 0.3%. Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF
SPY,
+1.94%
powered up 1.3%, after edging up just 0.1% before the data.