The Commerce Department said housing starts soared by 9.7% to an annual rate of 1.326 million in January after tumbling by 6.9% to a revised 1.209 million in December. Pretax margin was 32% in fiscal 2017 ended in July, the best in at least nine years.

The Consumer Price Index, which measures how quickly prices are going up in the U.S. economy, rose at a faster than anticipated 2.1 percent in January compared to a year ago. The S&P 500 increased 13.61 points, or 0.51 per cent, to 2,676.55.

While Treasury bond yields rose after the pricing data, the bounce in equities by midday suggested "stocks are comfortable with the idea that a little bit of inflation is a good thing", Briefing.com said.

Hot Stock Analysis: Alphabet Inc.

Investors were also taking in a slew of Canadian corporate earnings, while global markets rose. The stock rose $38.58, or 15.4 percent, to $289.91.

Gold jumped $27.60, or 2.1 percent, to $1,358 an ounce.

"Inflation has to be put into context", said Joseph LaVorgna, the chief economist for the Americas at Natixis in New York.

Wholesale prices for outpatient health care and bus fares rose, as did gasoline, diesel, electricity, iron and steel scrap.

Meanwhile, Australian stocks jumped 1.15 percent.

"The combination of stellar US CPI and weak retail sales data leaves investors in a precarious situation", said one strategist.

Cisco surged 4.73% following upbeat results and a strong forecast.

Do SMAs Signal a Trend Reversal?

The mixed close on Wall Street came after Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office revealed that a federal grand jury has indicted several Russian nationals for allegedly interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

Volatility is the degree of variation of a trading price series over time as measured by the standard deviation of logarithmic returns. The Rule of thumb is higher the volatility, the riskier the security. That means investors should be looking for possible buys.

But that's not all.

What about GOOGL Stock's Volatility? But it's happened six times in the last seven trading days, and eight times since the market's peak Jan. 26.

U.S. stocks closed higher. Presently, Beta factor for GOOGL stock stands at 1.09. A beta of less than 1 means that the security is theoretically less volatile than the market. "That it's stabilized has helped". Is it cheap now?

And travel website, Tripadvisor Inc gained 5.01% after better-than-expected results.

Technology shares were another strong segment, with Apple climbing 1.8 per cent, Amazon 2.6 per cent, Facebook 3.7 per cent and Netflix 3.0 per cent. The company also showed revenue growth for the first time in more than a year and a half.

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