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Wall Street Closes Sharply Lower in Biggest Weekly Loss of 2023

US stocks ended sharply lower, with the Dow dropping for a fourth straight week after the Fed's favorite inflation gauge topped expectations.

Wall Street’s main indexes posted their biggest weekly losses since 2023 after sharp losses on Friday. Investors braced for a more aggressive rate hike by the Federal Reserve as US economic data pointed to a resilient consumer.

The 3% drop was the biggest weekly drop for the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average since September. It was also the Dow’s fourth straight weekly drop, its longest losing streak in nearly 10 months.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite also fell 2.7% and 3.3%, respectively.

Stocks have retreated this month after a strong January, as a flurry of economic data heightened concerns that the Federal Reserve may have to keep interest rates high for longer.

Data on Friday showed the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge for personal expenditures prices surged 0.6% last month after rising just 0.2% in December. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of US economic activity, rose 1.8% last month, beating expectations for a 1.3% rise.

Futures traders tied to the Fed’s policy rate increased bets on at least three rate hikes this year, with rates expected to peak at 5.25%-5.5% by June.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 336.99 points, or 1.02%, to 32,816.92, the S&P 500 lost 42.28 points, or 1.05%, to 3,970.04, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 195.46 points, or 1.69%, to 11,394.94.

Nine of the 11 major S&P sectors fell, led by real estate, technology and consumer discretionary. Communications services fell 1.4% to a sixth straight session of losses, the worst performance since a similar six-session decline in August.

Mega-cap stocks, including Tesla Inc, Amazon Inc and Nvidia Inc, fell from 1.6% to 2.6% as US Treasury yields rose.

Subject to Fed policy, the two-year US Treasury note yield climbed to 4.826%, its highest level in nearly four months.

Boeing fell 4.8% after the US Federal Aviation Administration said the planemaker temporarily stopped deliveries of its 787 Dreamliner.

Adobe Inc fell 7.6% on a report that the US Justice Department will block the Photoshop maker’s $20 billion acquisition of cloud-based designer platform Figma.

Adobe stock’s drop was the steepest since September 15, when the Figma deal was announced.

Meanwhile, Range Resources Corp rose 11.9% in late trading, its biggest gain in nine months, after Bloomberg reported that Pioneer Natural Resources was in talks to buy. Shares of Pioneer fell 4.1% on the report.

Volume on US exchanges was 10.31 billion shares, compared with the 11.53 billion entire session average over the last 20 sessions.

The S&P 500 recorded two new 52-week highs and 11 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 44 new highs and 162 new lows.

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