Stocks stabilized Wednesday after Tuesday's hotter-than-expected inflation data sparked Wall Street's worst selloff in over two years.
Inflation remained in focus today with the early morning release of the producer price index (PPI) for August. Similar to yesterday's consumer price index (CPI), the PPI - which measures what suppliers are charging for goods and services - rose at a slower annual clip in August than it did in July. However, on a month-over-month basis, both PPI and core PPI, which excludes energy and food prices, were up from July's figures.
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"There is a divergence in headline and core inflation building, where headline is cooling and core is heating up," says Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group. "That's an odd phenomenon and likely influenced by the shift from goods to services post-pandemic. The Fed should proceed with caution and not hit the emergency brake on rate hikes."
While yesterday's selling was broad-based, today's action was more mixed. In terms of sector performance, real estate (-1.2%) and materials (-1.2%) were the biggest laggards, while energy ( 2.8%) outperformed as U.S. crude futures rose 1.3% to settle at $88.48 per barrel.
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As for the major indexes, the Nasdaq Composite ended up 0.7% at 11,719, while the S&P 500 Index ( 0.3% at 3,946) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ( 0.1% at 31,135) also finished with mode
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