By Noel Randewich and Purvi Agarwal
Oct 14 (Reuters) - Hotter-than-expected inflation data sent Wall Street tumbling on Wednesday, with worries about more interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve pummeling shares of Oracle, CoreWeave and other AI stocks sensitive to higher borrowing costs.
Increased bets that the Fed will have to further hike rates to tame inflation dealt a sharp blow to some of the market's biggest gainers of 2026. Oracle lost 7.3%, while AI-infrastructure firms CoreWeave and
Nebius tumbled 15% and 10%, respectively.
Dell dropped 12% and Hewlett Packard Enterprise lost 7.6% after Barclays downgraded the AI server makers to "equal-weight" from "overweight".
The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index dropped almost 4%, down for a sixth straight session and on track for its longest losing streak since May 2025.
US consumer prices accelerated in September as the cost of gasoline surged and price pressures broadened beyond energy, data from the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics showed.
Interest rate traders are pricing in a 37% chance that the Fed will raise rates at its policy meeting this month, up from 22% on Tuesday, according to CME's FedWatch tool.
"Investors are not happy with the report because that puts pressure on the Fed to raise rates to combat inflation," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments, in New York. "Inflation remains public enemy number one for the market and for the Fed."
The S&P 500 was down 1.35% at 7,700.08 points.
The Nasdaq declined 2.02% to 26,654.96 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.51% at 51,405.02 points.
Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes declined, led lower by information technology, down 2.64%, followed by a 1.77% loss in communication services.
After hitting a record high last week, the S&P 500 remains up over 12% in 2026, with most of that gain fueled by AI-related stocks. The median S&P 500 stock has gained 4% in 2026, and over 200 of the index's components are in negative territory.
Bank of America fell 5.8%. The lender's profit fell in the third quarter as it set aside $1.2 billion to cover regulatory fines for failures to detect potential money laundering. Morgan Stanley dropped 3.8%, despite a rise in quarterly profit.
The S&P 500 Banks index was last down 1.2%. Earlier, it dipped more than 2% to its lowest level in over four months.
Asset manager BlackRock was near flat after reporting a jump in third-quarter profit.
The Fed has time to wait and see how markets and the economy evolve after its September rate rise before deciding further action, Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman said.
Bending Spoons rallied 45% after Berkshire Hathaway invested another $330 million in the owner of Vimeo and AOL, a big endorsement from the high-profile investor whose moves traders closely follow.
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones within the S&P 500 by a 1.7-to-one ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 14 new highs and 11 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 22 new highs and 466 new lows.
(Reporting by Tharuniyaa Lakshmi and Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru, and by Noel Randewich; Editing by Devika Syamnath and David Gregorio)
