Inflation data drag US stocks down to heavy losses

On Tuesday, the major US equity indices are trading much down. US inflation decreased in January, though more slower than anticipated. Wall Street’s fear measure, the CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX), is up over 6% today after surging 7.7% on Monday.

The S&P 500’s key sectors all see significant midday losses. The S&P 500 index falls 1.10% to trade at 4,966.7, the Dow Jones retreats 0.62% to 38,555.27, and the Nasdaq loses 1.14% to trade at 15,761.5 at the time of writing.

For the first part of the session, the S&P 500’s main sectors remain firmly in the red. As the weakest performers, the real estate and utilities sectors each lose more than 2%.

Ecolab Inc. is the biggest gainer, up over 8% at $200. Conversely, the largest decliners of the day thus far are shares of VF Corp. and Hasbro Inc., both of which are down almost 7%.

According to a study released on Tuesday by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, annualised inflation in the US decreased to 3.1% in January from 3.4% in December. This was determined by analysing changes in the Consumer Price Index. This result above the 2.9% market expectation. The Core CPI does not include volatile energy and food prices.

The US consumer’s one-year inflation expectation remained stable at 3%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s most recent Survey of Consumer Expectations, released on Monday.


The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increase for December was reduced by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) on Friday, and it was now 0.2% instead of 0.3%.


According to Dallas Federal Reserve (Fed) Bank President Lorie Logan, lowering interest rates is not urgently necessary. Logan said there has been “tremendous progress” in reducing inflation, but she added that more data on the topic would be helpful in determining how long the progress will last.

Among the well-known businesses that will disclose their earnings after the closing bell are Airbnb Inc. and MGM Resorts International. The US economic calendar will include January Retail Sales, Industrial Production, and Producer Price Index (PPI) data later this week.