NEW YORK — Technology companies led stocks lower Thursday after another day of choppy trading on Wall Street as global markets keep swinging on uncertainty about where inflation, interest rates and the global economy are heading.
Oil’s back-and-forth moves were just some of the waves of reports that buffeted markets worldwide. The European Central Bank said high inflation will push it to wrap up its bond-buying program meant to boost its economy faster than expected. In the U.S., a report showed that consumer prices leaped 7.9% in February from a year earlier. It’s the sharpest spike since 1982, though the reading was largely within expectations.The war in Ukraine is causing surging gas prices.
Smaller company stocks held up better than the broader market. The Russell 2000 fell 4.62 points, or 0.2%, to 2,011.67. “Until investors can get clarity on some of these topics, we’re going to continue to have volatile markets,” said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management.
Many investors said the report likely won’t change anything for the Federal Reserve, which meets next week to vote on interest rates. The wide expectation is that it will raise its key short-term rate by a quarter of a percentage point, which would be the first since 2018. Higher rates slow the economy, and the Fed is trying to raise them enough to tamp down inflation but not so much that it causes a recession.
Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.6% to $109.33 per barrel. Both it and U.S. benchmark oil are up more than 40% for 2022 so far, though they remain below the peaks they hit earlier this week. U.S. oil briefly topped $130.
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