Wall St falls as hot inflation data fuels rate-hike jitters

On Tuesday, Wall Street's primary indexes declined following a hotter-than-anticipated October inflation report, reigniting concerns that the Federal Reserve might maintain interest rates at elevated levels for an extended period. The US consumer prices surged more than anticipated in October, climbing 0.4 percent from the previous month, thereby pushing the U.S. 2-year yield up by 21.4 basis points, marking its largest one-day increase since April of the prior year.

Market participants had largely discounted some of the anticipated Fed tightening measures in recent weeks. However, the situation now seems to necessitate the Fed's consideration of additional rate hikes. James McCann, a senior economist at Edward Jones, commented on the matter, noting that traders are now calculating an almost 99 percent probability of a rate increase in December, as indicated by the CME FedWatch tool.

Sectors sensitive to interest rates experienced declines. Real estate and utilities both dropped over 0.5 percent each, while tech stocks led the selloff with a 1.8 percent decrease. Among individual stocks, Nvidia suffered a 6.3 percent loss, marking its second consecutive day of decline. The stock drop was attributed to growing apprehensions surrounding CEO Jensen Huang's future at the chip company, following the initiation of an internal investigation into allegations of espionage involving a Chinese businesswoman.