NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Stocks rose Thursday morning after a milder-than-expected inflation reading seemed to support the idea that the Federal Reserve can stop its interest-rate hiking campaign sooner rather than later.

The Dow Jones industrial average (up 22.17 to 11,231.94, Charts), the Standard & Poor's 500 (up 2.58 to 1,305.60, Charts) index and the Nasdaq composite (up 6.19 to 2,318.03, Charts) all gained at least 0.2 percent in the early going.

The gains built on the previous session's advance, in which the Dow and S&P 500 surged to their highest levels in almost five years. The gains were fostered by a bullish Fed "beige book" read on the economy that pushed the major gauges through key technical levels.

Rate-sensitive investors were further reassured by a mild report on consumer inflation Thursday.

The February Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.1 percent in the month, as expected, after climbing 0.7 percent in the previous month.

The so-called "core" CPI, which excludes the volatile food and energy components, increased 0.1 percent, short of forecasts for a boost of 0.2 percent. Core CPI was up 0.2 percent in January.

Housing starts and building permits slowed less-than-expected in February, according to a separate report.

Among stock movers, Bear Stearns (up $1.64 to $135.85, Research) inched higher after becoming the latest investment bank this week to report higher quarterly results, following Goldman Sachs (down $0.01 to $148.99, Research) and Lehman Brothers (down $0.13 to $144.02, Research).

Treasury prices rose modestly, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 4.70 percent from 4.73 percent late Thursday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

U.S. light crude oil for April delivery fell 16 cents to $62.01 a barrel in electronic trading.

In currency trading, the dollar fell against the euro and yen.

COMEX gold for April delivery fell 80 cents to $553.60 an ounce.

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