U.S. stocks open mixed ahead of Fed Chair Powell’s speech as inflation gauge for July fell

U.S. stocks opened mixed Friday ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole economic symposium in Wyoming, as investors digested data showing price pressure eased in July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.22% was up 0.2% soon after the opening bell, while the S&P 500 SPX, -1.50% rose less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -1.89% slipped than 0.1%, FactSet data show, at last check. Investors are waiting to hear from Fed Chair Powell, who is scheduled to speak at 10 a.m. Eastern time, for clues about the path of the central bank’s rate hikes as it battles high inflation. On Friday, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, the personal-consumption-expenditures index, showed the cost of living in the U.S. fell in July for the first time in more than two years as gas prices dropped. The rate of inflation fell to 6.3% in the 12 months through July, from an annual pace of 6.8% in June. Core PCE, which excludes energy and food prices, slowed to an annual rate of 4.6% in July, from 4.8% in June.