U.S. stock-index futures sank Sunday after Wall Street’s worst week since January.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YM00,
Prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies also slid over the weekend, with bitcoin BTCUSD,
Stocks finished sharply lower Friday. The Dow DJIA,
Read: Stocks sink again as hot inflation reading triggers market shock waves: What investors need to know
For the week, the Dow fell 4.6%, the S&P 500 dove 5.1% and the Nasdaq sank 5.6%. It was the biggest weekly loss since January for all three major benchmarks, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Markets fell following renewed inflation worries, as a new report showed hotter-than-expected readings. The consumer-price index on Friday showed U.S. inflation increased 1% in May, well above the 0.7% monthly rise forecast by economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal. The year-over-year rate rose 8.6%, topping the 40-year high of 8.5% seen in March.
Federal Reserve policy-makers are set to meet this week, and are expected to raise interest rates by 50 basis points, though some economists think that after Friday’s CPI report, there may be support for a more aggressive 75-basis-point hike.
Also see: ‘Doves don’t exist on the FOMC right now’: Economists expect hawkish Fed meeting this week
“U.S. CPI for May was a nightmare for risk markets,” Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, wrote in a note Sunday. “The market is now thinking much more about the Fed driving rates sharply higher to get on top of inflation and then having to cut back as growth drops.
That will leave traders and investors “deliberating how much further tightening central banks’ will be able to deliver and, therefore, how much higher yields can go from here. And we all know nothing ever good happens when interest rate volatility spikes in capital markets,” he said.
