Dow drops 300 points as hot inflation report sends Wall Street reeling
Stocks dropped on Tuesday after hotter-than-expected inflation data for January spiked Treasury yields and raised doubts that the Federal Reserve would be able to cut rates several times this year, a key part of the bull case for the equity market.
The consumer price index rose 0.3% in January from December. CPI was up 3.1% on an annual basis. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected CPI to have increased by 0.2% month over month in January and 2.9% from a year earlier.
Core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy components, rose 0.4% month over month and 3.9% from a year ago. Core CPI was expected to have increased 0.3% in January and 3.7% from a year earlier, respectively.
The 2-year Treasury yield jumped above 4.6%, and the 10-year yield topped 4.27% following the CPI data. Tech shares including Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon, which have led the market run to record highs as rates declined, led the losses in early trading Tuesday. All three were off by more than 1% in premarket trading.
Wall Street is coming off a mixed session in which the Dow closed at a record, while the S&P 500 ended the day down slightly along with the Nasdaq. All three of the major averages are riding a five-week winning streak.
