US stocks slid on Thursday following the release of another hotter-than-expected 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) and and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell about 0.3%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) declined closer to 0.4%. Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA) both fell roughly 4%, continuing a slide from the previous session.
The small cap benchmark Russell 2000 (^RUT) Index was one of the biggest laggards on the day, falling about 2% as investors scaled back bets for a June interest rate cut.
On Thursday, February’s Producer Price Index rose 0.6% from last month, higher than an expected increase of 0.3%, adding to a sequence of data that has found inflation remaining at slightly elevated levels.
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 50% after a Wall Street Journal report that the EV maker is exploring a bankruptcy filing.
