Wall Street tumbles as fresh data fuels inflation fear

Wall Street tumbles as fresh data fuels inflation fear

By Noel Randewich and Pranav Kashyap

Fri March 28, 2025 4:31 PM

The highly awaited PCE numbers came with a disappointment showing what was feared – inflation up and thus consumer spending down, or to put it more accurately, spending rebounded less than expected. All in all, it just further fueled the fires of fear and uncertainty and, combined with the coming automobile tariffs, sent all three indexes spiraling way down constantly all day, major 3-digit drops all around. The U of M consumer inflation survey showed expectations exploding to a 2-1/2 year high, beating down stalwarts Apple, Microsoft and Amazon from 2.7% to 4.3%. All three indexes were down for the week from 1% to 2.6%. And it gets worse.  

The S&P is close to entering correction territory again today down 9% from its February high, while the Nasdaq is firmly down 14% since it’s December high. But the very worst was expressed by today’s expert, “One of the other big cautionary points for investors is that the inflation impact of tariffs has yet to show up in the data, which is why we believe this is the calm before the tariff storm, with inflation likely to head more north than south in the coming months.” Or put in simpler terms – we ain’t seen nothin’ yet! The only good news is that volume was light coming in well below the 16.2 billion average at 14.3 billion, which indicates that investors are still in wait-and-see mode, so panic selling has not yet set in.  Oh, and the VIX is still barely over 20, which is still quite a way from the benchmark 30 that sets off the real alarms. 

DJ: 42,299.70  -155.09       NAS: 17,804.03  -94.98        S&P: 5,693.31  -18.89          3/27

DJ: 41,583.90  -715.80       NAS: 17,322.99  -481.04      S&P: 5,580.94  -112.37        3/28

Fri 3-28-25 4:31 pm Wall Street tumbles as fresh data fuels inflation fear | Reuters