Wall Street stocks fall after hot inflation data

Hotter-than-expected US inflation data sent the Nasdaq to a sharply lower close on Wednesday, with worries about more interest rate hikes from the US Federal Reserve pummeling shares ⁠of Oracle, CoreWeave and other AI stocks sensitive to higher borrowing costs. Increased bets that the Fed will need more rate hikes to tame inflation dealt a sharp blow to some of the market's biggest gainers of 2026. Oracle lost 8.8 percent, while AI-infrastructure firms CoreWeave and Nebius tumbled 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise sank 11.4 percent and 8.2 percent respectively, after Barclays downgraded the AI server makers to "equal-weight" from "overweight". The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index dropped 4.3 percent, down for a sixth straight session, its longest losing streak since May 2025. Apple rose 0.5 percent, with its market capitalisation closing above US$5 trillion for the first time. US Labor Department data showed the core consumer price index up 0.3 percent in September versus economist expectations for a rise of 0.2 percent. On an annual basis, core CPI, which strips out food and energy prices, rose 2.6 percent, above forecasts for a rise of 2.5 percent, while the headline rate rose 3.7 percent, above estimates for a rise of 3.6 percent. Interest-rate...