(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock

markets, click or type LIVE/ in a news window.)

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Consumer prices rise less than expected in April; core CPI

slows

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Retail sales flat in April

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NYCB gains on $5 bln mortgage warehouse loan sale

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Futures up: Dow 0.35%, S&P 0.44%, Nasdaq 0.41%

(Updated at 08:44 a.m. ET/ 1244 GMT)

By Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Shristi Achar A

May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures advanced on

Wednesday after a lower-than-expected increase in a key

inflation metric bolstered hopes of interest rate cuts from the

Federal Reserve this year.

The consumer price index (CPI) gained 0.3% in April, a Labor

Department report showed, compared with a 0.4% increase expected

by economists polled by Reuters and a 0.4% rise in March.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the

CPI rose 0.3% in April after advancing 0.4% in March.

"What the data does for the Fed is it establishes the first

in what they are going to need to be a series of softer CPI

reports for them to be able to cut later this year," said Jason

Pride, chief of investment strategy and research at Glenmede.

"If there were concerns that they weren't going to cut at

all, this just alleviated some of those concerns."

After the data, traders slightly raised bets the Fed will

cut its policy rate in September and again in December.

Separately, a report from the Commerce Department showed

retail sales were unexpectedly flat in April after advancing

0.7% in March.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq notched a fresh record closing

high on Tuesday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell's assessment of

U.S. growth and inflation reassured investors as they digested

hotter-than-expected producer prices for April.

Stocks have rallied so far this year on better-than-expected

earnings for the first quarter and expectations that the Fed

will be able to cool inflation without badly hurting growth and

eventually transition to cutting interest rates.

The benchmark S&P 500 is whiskers away from a record

high, while the blue-chip Dow is also set to breach the

40,000-mark for the first time.

At 08:44 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 139 points,

or 0.35%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 23.25 points, or

0.44%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 75.25 points, or

0.41%.

Most rate-sensitive megacap growth and technology stocks

rose in premarket trading, with Tesla leading gains.

Retail investor darling GameStop ( GME ) fell 11.8%, set to

snap this week's rally that was driven by "Roaring Kitty" Keith

Gill, a central figure behind the 2021 meme stock frenzy,

posting on social media platform X.

Other meme stocks also cut earlier gains, with AMC

Entertainment ( AMC ) turning 10.7% lower.

Shares of New York Community Bancorp rose 3.8%

after the embattled lender said on Tuesday it had agreed to sell

about $5 billion in mortgage warehouse loans to JPMorgan Chase ( JPM )

.

(Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Shristi Achar A in

Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Ankika Biswas; Editing by

Sriraj Kalluvila and Devika Syamnath)