Wall St falls as inflation data cements rate hike bets

March 10 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s major indexes fell on Thursday, with tech stocks leading the declines after data showed consumer prices jumped in February, cementing the case for a rate hike interest rate by the Federal Reserve later this month.

The Labor Department report showed consumer prices rose 7.9% year-on-year, the biggest annual rise in 40 years.

While the numbers matched economists’ expectations, investors feared inflation could pick up further in the coming months as Russia’s war on Ukraine pushes up prices of oil and other commodities. . Read more

Nine of the 11 major S&P sectors fell, with technology (.SPLRCT), down 1.9%, falling the most after leading a rally on Wall Street in the previous session. Chipmakers (.SOX) fell 2.2%.

Energy stocks (.SPNY) rose 1.2% after pausing on Wednesday.

“At the end of the day, inflation is high and there’s more to come,” said Peter Cardillo, chief economist at Spartan Capital Securities.

“I expected inflation to peak in the second quarter, but now it depends on oil. Maybe we won’t see any relief until the end of the year.”

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said last week that he would back a quarter-point rate hike at next week’s US central bank meeting and would be “ready to act more aggressively” later, if inflation does not come down as quickly as expected. Read more

Traders now see a 95% chance of a 25 basis point hike by the Fed at its March meeting. IRPR

Big banks fell, with Citigroup (CN) down 2.1%.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) said it was closing its operations in Russia, becoming the first major Wall Street bank to leave the country after Moscow invaded Ukraine. Read more

Meanwhile, talks between Russia and Ukraine yielded no progress as the war entered its third week on Thursday.

As of 9:55 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) was down 246.12 points, or 0.74%, at 33,040.13, the S&P 500 (.SPX) was down 39.51 points, or 0.92%, to 4,238.37, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) was down 190.70 points, or 1.44%, to 13,064.84.

Growth stocks Megacap Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), Meta Platforms (FB.O) and Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) all fell more than 1%, while Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) and Apple Inc fell fell by more than 2.5% each.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc jumped 4.8% after its board approved a 20-for-1 split of the e-commerce giant’s common stock and authorized a $10 billion buyout plan. Read more

Falling issues outnumbered advances 2.71 to 1 on the NYSE and 3.10 to 1 on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded a new 52-week high and four new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 14 new highs and 79 new lows.

Reporting by Devik Jain and entrepreneur Sabahatjahan in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Stephen Culp in New York Editing by Vinay Dwivedi

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