Welcome to Markets Desk, here is where things stand.
Equities took a notable hit Wednesday as a hotter-than-expected September consumer price index report rattled sentiment across the board. The S&P five hundred closed down over one percent, while the Nasdaq one hundred shed more than two percent, with chipmakers bearing the brunt of the selling pressure as rate-cut expectations got dialed back sharply.
That inflation data sent the dollar index surging to a one-and-a-half-year high, up nearly four-tenths of a percent on the session. Gold retreated on the move, and commodity markets broadly felt the squeeze, with sugar prices erasing earlier gains as dollar strength made dollar-denominated assets less attractive to global buyers.
Away from macro, Rocket Lab saw its shares slide after the company confirmed its Neutron rocket, a medium-lift vehicle designed to compete directly with SpaceX's Falcon nine, will not make its first launch this year. The delay pushes back a milestone investors had been closely watching as a measure of the company's long-term commercial launch ambitions.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
