12:00 PM Flash: S&P 500 Edges Higher as Oil Holds Above $99 While VIX Ticks Lower

This is your 12:00 PM Market Flash. Live numbers: the S&P five hundred currently at seven thousand four hundred eleven point eight, up eight point seven five, that's up zero point one two percent. The VIX is easing to seventeen point eight six, down one point one one percent. Gold trading at four thousand five hundred twenty nine point six. WTI crude at ninety nine point zero five dollars a barrel, and Bitcoin sitting at seventy seven thousand two hundred forty eight point four four. Markets remain cautiously firm this afternoon with very light institutional flows as traders continue to digest mixed signals on the inflation front and potential Fed policy path into next year. Oil is holding steady above the ninety nine dollar level amid ongoing Middle East supply concerns. In our top story, NPR staffers are facing fresh chaos as federal funding cuts and mass layoffs loom, just days after one of the network's top hosts resigned amid an internal probe. This developing situation highlights the broader pressure on publicly funded institutions in the current fiscal environment. And in one heartening piece of news making global headlines, an adorable beagle was heard howling for the very first time after he and fifteen hundred other dogs were liberated from a scientific testing facility in Wisconsin. This is Miss Vicky from the Options Desk at VixShield, where it's not news till we talk about it.