U.S. stocks were under pressure Tuesday after a report showed inflation was worse across the country last month than economists expected.
The S&P 500 fell 0.7 per cent and gave back some of its big rally from the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 333 points, or 0.6 per cent, as of 10:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8 per cent lower.
U.S. inflation was higher than expected last month, signaling that rising prices that powered sweeping Democratic victories in last week’s midterm elections will continue posing challenges for the White House and the Federal Reserve.
The consumer price index rose 0.4 per cent from September to October, the Labor Department said Tuesday, down from 0.6 per cent the previous month. Economists polled were expecting inflation to rise by 0.3 per cent. The government did not report a yearly inflation rate because last year’s government shutdown meant no data was released for October 2025.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 0.3 per cent, the same as the preceding month. Both figures were a tenth of a point higher than forecast.
Pressure from the bond market undercut stocks following the discouraging report on inflation. People had to pay prices for groceries, electricity and other costs of living that were even higher last month than economists expected. That could push the Federal Reserve to hike its main interest rate at its next meeting in December and beyond.
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Higher interest rates can help rein in inflation, but they do so by making it more expensive for everyone to borrow money and by slowing the overall economy. Higher rates also make investors less willing to pay high prices for stocks and other investments.
One Fed official even hinted the central bank may increase the federal funds rate by double the typical amount next month because of how high inflation has remained for years.
Speaking in London before the inflation report was released, Fed Gov. Christopher Waller said “a stronger policy move may be needed” if the report showed an important underlying measure of inflation rose by 0.3 per cent from September.
In that case, he said the Fed should consider hiking the federal funds rate by half a percentage point rather than the typical quarter point. Moving by only the usual amount could “put our credibility at risk, a risk I am not eager to take.”
Shortly afterward, Tuesday’s inflation report showed that the underlying measure of inflation Waller was worried about was exactly 0.3 per cent, the threshold he had set. It’s the Fed’s job to keep inflation under control, along with keeping the job market strong.
That sent yields jumping in the bond market as traders upped their forecasts for coming hikes to rates by the Fed.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 4.99 per cent from 4.88 per cent late Monday. It’s a notable move for the bond market, and the yield helps set where rates are for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses.
The 10-year Treasury yield had been dropping since early October, when it topped 5.30 per cent as worries spiked about high inflation, higher interest rates, the U.S. government’s big debt and other concerns.
Tuesday’s jump in yields came even though oil prices fell again. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil sank 2.4 per cent to US$90.31. President Donald Trump said late Monday that the war in Iran, which sent oil prices much higher, “militarily is effectively over.”
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Brent’s price has been falling from more than $112 at the start of the month amid uncertainty about what will happen with the war with Iran.
Jumps in Treasury yields push downward on prices for all kinds of stocks, and they can particularly hurt companies in the real-estate business.
Higher mortgage rates can keep potential customers away from homebuilders, for example, and Lennar fell five per cent for one of the sharper losses in the S&P 500.
Rival homebuilders also fell, including drops of 4.3 per cent for D.R. Horton and 4.3 per cent for PulteGroup. Builders FirstSource, which sells crown mouldings, cabinets and other products to homebuilders, sank 5.3 per cent.
The single heaviest weight on the S&P 500 was Nvidia, which fell 5.3 per cent. It’s been under pressure since its board announced an investigation into its CEO, Jensen Huang, who admitted to a relationship with a woman who, according to The New York Times, U.S. intelligence determined was gathering information for China.
It’s also been swinging amid broader worries that have knocked the artificial-intelligence industry around recently. Democratic victories in statehouses across the country last week raised concerns about possible restrictions on construction of AI data centres. That built on top of already longstanding worries that AI stock prices had shot too high and were in a bubble.
Outside of Nvidia, other stocks in the AI industry were mixed. GE Vernova, which is helping to power AI data centres, dropped 7.2 per cent. Micron Technology, which sells memory for computers, fell 2.3 per cent after flipping between gains and losses earlier in the morning.
But Advanced Micro Devices climbed 2.6 per cent. CoreWeave, a company that rents out access to AI chips to customers over the cloud, also held up better. It added 0.8 per cent.
The recent shakiness for AI-related stocks had raised questions about whether Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, may delay its initial public offering of stock.
But Anthropic said in a filing with U.S. regulators on Tuesday that it’s looking to sell its stock at a price valuing the company at roughly $1.3 trillion. That would make it one of the most valuable companies on Wall Street, worth more than Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, ExxonMobil or Coca-Cola.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.
South Korea’s Kospi jumped 4.4 per cent for one of the world’s biggest gains on strength for its two tech giants that have benefited from the AI boom, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
