Stock Market Today: Fastest Inflation in 40 Years Flattens Stocks' Rally
The much-awaited consumer price index (CPI) reading for January more than lived up to its billing, jumping by the fastest annual rate in four decades. Wall Street ultimately sold off on the news, but only after a few hours of waffling.
The Labor Department said Thursday that consumer prices rose by a whopping 7.5% annually in January, easily exceeding economists' estimates of 7.2% – the sharpest such increase since February 1982.
The headline number was driven by steeply higher prices for food and energy, but even "core" CPI,
