Stocks slump after hot inflation print
US stocks slid on Thursday following the release of a hotter-than-expected wholesale inflation print. The reading served as one of the last pieces of data that could sway the Federal Reserve at its policy meeting next week.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) declined 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell 0.5%. Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA) both fell more than 4%, continuing a slide from the previous session.
February’s Producer Price Index rose 0.6% from last month, higher than an expected increase of 0.3%. Investors were watching whether inflation is cooling fast enough to satisfy Fed policymakers and herald interest rate cuts.
Though the market shrugged off signs of sticky inflation in Tuesday’s CPI report and stuck to their hopes for a policy pivot come summer, that calculus could be changing. According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, 40% of traders now expect the Fed to hold at current interest rate levels through June, an uptick from about 25% one week ago.
Meanwhile, retail sales increased 0.6%, coming in short of estimates for a rise of 0.8% but still marking a rebound from a decline in January.
In commodities, oil’s revived rally continued to build after the IEA warned that supply would lag this year and US stockpiles shrank. WTI crude futures (CL=F) traded just above $81 per barrel and touched their highest levels since November, while Brent crude futures (BZ=F) pushed above $85.
On the corporate front, Fisker’s (FSR) shares plunged more than 40% after a Wall Street Journal report that the EV maker is exploring a bankruptcy filing.
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