Good evening, this is Markets Desk with your closing look at the stories moving the conversation today.
Moderna shareholders are being warned to brace for continued volatility, and the message from Wall Street is pointed. Even after its latest sharp selloff, the drugmaker's stock is still priced for extraordinary success, meaning the margin for disappointment remains dangerously thin and any guidance miss could accelerate the pain.
Shifting to the macro picture, investors received an unwelcome inflation reading that showed price pressures re-accelerating in September, driven largely by elevated energy costs. That data raises the probability of additional Federal Reserve rate hikes, and history suggests that when the Fed is forced back into tightening mode late in a cycle, equity markets tend to reprice risk in a hurry.
And on the geopolitical front, the USS George Washington strike group is actively preparing for a potential escalation in hostilities involving Iran. Sailors aboard the carrier are in a visible rearmament posture, and markets are watching closely, because any significant flare-up in that theater would send oil prices sharply higher and complicate the Fed's already difficult inflation calculus considerably.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
