Wall Street Today: Dow Jones drops 400 points as US Inflation rises 50 bps to 3% YoY, dimming hopes for Fed rate cuts

Wall Street Today: Stock market for the United States opened lower on Wednesday, February 12, after investors’ hope of a US Federal Reserve rate cut disappeared after the US Bureau of Labor Statistics posted a higher than expected inflation data for January 2025. 

The US Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5 per cent or 50 basis points to 3 per cent over the last year, according to the official press release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

The CPI inflation for the month of December was at 2.9 per cent, according to the data release. The inflation data released on Wednesday backed the US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s stance that the US is in no hurry to cut rates. 

“The all items index rose 3.0 per cent for the 12 months ending January, after rising 2.9 per cent over the 12 months ending December,” said the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in the data release.

As soon as the markets opened in New York at 9:30 a.m. (EST) , the key benchmark index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, lost over 400 points to open at 44,153.60 points, compared to 44,593.65 points at the previous stock market close. 

Dow Jones Stocks 

After the index opened lower, many stocks, such as Home Depot Inc., Sherwin-Williams Co., Caterpillar Inc., Salesforce Inc., Amazon.com Inc., American Express Co., Cisco Systems Inc., 3M Co., Nike Inc., Microsoft Corp., were among the top losers in the early market session. 

UnitedHealth Group Inc., Walmart Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Apple Inc. shares were in green during early Wednesday’s market session.  

S&P 500 

The S&P 500 index also opened 0.92 per cent lower at 6,012.78 points, compared to 6,068.50 points at the previous stock market close. 

CVS Health Corp., Gilead Sciences Inc., Edwards Lifesciences Corp., Generac Holdings Inc., Humana Inc., Super Micro Computer Inc., Molina Healthcare Inc., Tesla Inc., Tapestry Inc., and NCP Semiconductors N.V. were the early gainers on the index, according to data collected from Marketwatch. 

Wabtec, Waters Corp., Biogen Inc., Iron Mountain Inc., Smurfit Westrock Plc., Arista Networks Inc., Martin Marietta Materials Inc., Cincinnati Financial Corp., Builders FirstSourceInc., and Eversource Energy were among the top losers in the early market session.