Stock Market Today: Dow Falls 156 Points and the S&P 500 Slips 29 as the Hot October CPI Fuels Rate-Hike Fears
Stocks closed lower Tuesday, though well above their session lows, after October consumer prices rose 0.4 percent — hotter than expected — and a Federal Reserve governor said a December rate hike is likely, with a half-point move on the table.
NEW YORK — Stocks closed lower on Tuesday after a hotter-than-expected inflation report reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again in December. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 156.49 points to close at 52,233.26, the S&P 500 slid 28.97 points to 7,520.97, and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 187.26 points to 25,223.26, Baystreet reported. In percentage terms, Investopedia put the day at down 0.3 percent for the Dow, 0.4 percent for the S&P 500 and 0.7 percent for the Nasdaq, with all three indexes finishing well above their session lows.
The day's driver was the October consumer price index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Headline prices rose 0.4 percent on the month — above the 0.3 percent Dow Jones consensus — and core prices, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3 percent against a 0.2 percent call, Baystreet reported. Investopedia noted the headline increase was down from the month before but still slightly higher than economists had anticipated. No annual inflation figures were published with Tuesday's report because of the 2025 government shutdown, Baystreet reported.
The report landed alongside hawkish words from the Fed itself. Governor Christopher Waller said in a speech Tuesday that he thinks a December rate hike is likely and opened the door to a larger half-point increase as inflationary pressures persist, Baystreet reported. The yield on the 10-year Treasury — the rate that feeds into mortgages and other loans — rose to about 4.98 to 4.99 percent, up from Monday's close, both outlets reported.
One stock did outsized damage. Nvidia fell about 5 percent on the day — 5.5 percent by Investopedia's count, pacing the Dow's decliners — amid what Investopedia reported as uncertainty about the chipmaker's leadership, including a board investigation it reported involving CEO Jensen Huang. Other chip stocks were mixed, Investopedia reported, with Micron and Intel lower and Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices higher.
Tuesday's decline followed Monday's surge of more than 2 percent across the major indexes, which had wiped out most of last week's losses, Investopedia reported. In other markets, oil traded near $86.40 a barrel, gold fell to about $4,040 an ounce, and bitcoin traded around $73,800, near its lowest level in nearly three months.
