Wall Street higher but on track for deep weekly losses

By Sruthi Shankar and Tanya Agrawal

REUTERS - U.S. stocks were modestly higher in late morning trading on Friday as investors cautiously dipped back into riskier assets, after a three-day losing streak on concerns over escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea.

A weaker-than-expected July consumer price data also supported the recovery.

Still, the S&P and the Dow were on track to post their biggest weekly loss in about five months and the Nasdaq on course to post its biggest weekly fall in about six weeks.

In his latest warning to North Korea, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday military solutions were "fully in place" and referred to American weapons as being "locked and loaded" should the nuclear-armed nation act "unwisely".

Nearly $1 trillion has been wiped out from global equity markets since tensions were sparked off by Trump's "fire and fury" comments on Tuesday.

The CBOE Volatility Index, a barometer of expected near-term stock market volatility, closed at its highest since the U.S. presidential election on Thursday, but was down 1.22 points at 14.82 points on Friday.

The consumer price data, which pointed to weak inflation, could cause the Federal Reserve to hold off from raising rates again this year.

"The market is trying to interpret the CPI data as somewhat positive because it is anticipating that the Fed will be on hold not only in September but also possibly in December," said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Boston Private Wealth.

"It clears the field of another possible issue and with that you start to see a little bit of short covering going on."

Federal funds futures suggested the chance of rate hike in December fell to 40 percent from 42 percent shortly before the release of the data.

At 10:57 a.m. ET (1457 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 54.38 points, or 0.25 percent, at 21,898.39, the S&P 500 was up 8.69 points, or 0.35 percent, at 2,446.90.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 34.61 points, or 0.56 percent, at 6,251.48.

The U.S. equity market is hovering near record levels and volume has been tepid following the onset of summer. The S&P has lost more than 1 percent on only three days this year.

Six of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, with the technology's 0.36 percent rise leading the advancers.

Shares of Snap were down as much as 14.23 percent and hit an all-time low following a miss on revenue and daily active users. At least seven brokerages cut their price targets on the stock.

Nvidia's quarterly revenue in its data center and automotive businesses missed estimates, dragging the chipmaker's shares down 5.43 percent.

J.C. Penney slumped as much as 18.25 percent to a record low after the retailer reported a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,432 to 1,310. On the Nasdaq, 1,462 issues rose and 1,227 fell.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)