Here's why art cashin says the s&p 500's move to a new record may be 'slightly suspect'

The S & P 500 hit an all-time high early Thursday, but longtime trader Art Cashin told CNBC he's taking a wait-and-see approach before determining whether stocks are entering a

steady upside move. "The market is a great tease here," Cashin said on "Squawk on the Street." "They go up, look like they're breaking out, and then they

hesitate. They pull back into that rectangle [trading range], so we're going to give it a couple of days of testing and see what happens." The S & P 500 was up by about 0.3% on

Thursday. The broad equity index has gained about 1% in the past month, compared with a roughly 4% gain for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite . Cashin, who serves as director of floor

operations for UBS at the New York Stock Exchange, said he's looking for an indication of strong buying pressure to help sustain the S & P 500's move higher. "You'd

like to believe when you punch through the upside of a market pattern, that inspires both breakout buying and, in some cases, short covering, so you should see a kind of burst after you move

out," Cashin said. "No burst so far, and without that then you've got to say the moves are slightly suspect." The Wall Street veteran also weighed in on the bond market

following Thursday's hotter-than-expected read on May consumer prices , the latest data point showing inflationary pressures across the economy. The yield on the benchmark 10-year

Treasury was steady Thursday, trading around 1.49% . Yields, which move inversely to prices, have trended lower in recent weeks after hitting 1.7% about a month ago . Cashin said a critical

yield level to watch is 1.35%. "If any of these disinflationary, deflationary moves become evident, then I would have to back up. I think we might again start to move lower,"

Cashin said, noting that there's already been a relative cooling off in some commodities such as lumber . If the 10-year yield slides all the way back to 1.35% and "we move through

it, then that will tell me that there is something going on here, that people are saying, 'Inflation? No. Not at all,'" Cashin said. "We're going from transitory to

possibly deflationary. The question is wide open out there."