Inflation’s hot, but so are markets this year

U.S. producer prices still hot
U.S. producer prices rose 0.4% in November, higher than the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 0.2%. On an annual basis, PPI advanced 3%, the most since the 12 months ended February 2023. The hotter-than-anticipated increase in producer prices comes after headline consumer prices rose at a sharper annual rate in November compared with the prior month.

Inflation in India cools
India’s headline inflation rate came in at 5.48% in November, lower than the 5.53% expected by a Reuters poll and the 6.21% in October. The reading follows a disappointing quarter of economic growth for India and a new central bank governor, raising hopes that the Reserve Bank of India might cut rates at its next meeting in February.

ECB cuts rates
On Thursday, the European Central Bank lowered its key interest rate to 3%, reducing it by an expected 25 basis points. The bank also lowered its forecast for euro zone economic growth in 2024 to 0.7% from a prior forecast of 0.8%, and growth in 2025 to 1.1% from 1.3%.

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The U.S. producer price index, which measures the increase in wholesale prices, came in higher than expected on Thursday. A day earlier, the U.S. consumer price index showed annual inflation in November ticked up from the previous month.

Those numbers might have been a tad uncomfortable to handle, and the markets didn’t want to take inflation hot to go.

Major indexes also fell. The S&P 500 lost 0.54% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.53%, its sixth consecutive day in the red. The Nasdaq Composite dipped below the 20,000 level after retreating 0.66%, weighed down by losses in tech stocks.

Adobe shares slumped 13.7%, their steepest drop in more than two years, after the company gave disappointing guidance for its fiscal first-quarter revenue.

That said, the Nasdaq might find some reprieve the next day. Broadcom shares popped 14% in extended trading after releasing its earnings, which showed the chipmaker increasing its artificial intelligence revenue by 220% for the year. Even prior to announcing its better-than-expected earnings, Broadcom had been earning praises from analysts.

“Broadcom was previously considered a value stock, but it could now be seen as a growth stock. However, it appeals to both, thanks to its continued dividend payments and growth,” Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments, said in a note to clients.

Indeed, the company’s stock has surged 66.5% year to date — a figure that puts Broadcom in the league of the Magnificent Seven companies: Shares of Amazon are up 52.7% and that of Apple have risen 33.6% for the year.

It’s important, then, to keep stocks’ sterling performance this year in mind even as investors wonder what it’ll take to get inflation numbers below the U.S. Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.

— CNBC’s Pia Singh, Sean Conlon and Lisa Hakyung Kim contributed to this report.