US open: Stocks slip as PPI hits four‑year high

(Sharecast News) - Major indices were in the red early on Wednesday as market participants digested yet another hotter than expected inflation reading.

As of 1500 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.45% at 49,536.04, while the S&P 500 shed 0.18% to 7,387.91 and the Nasdaq Composite came out of the gate 0.02% softer at 26,082.65.

The Dow opened 224.52 points lower on Wednesday, more than erasing gains recorded in the previous session despite a hotter-than-expected April consumer price index reading.

April's producer price index will likely be on Wednesday's primary focus, with the Bureau of Labor Statics revealing that US PPI rose sharply last month, with the headline producer price index for final demand increasing 1.4% month‑on‑month, up from gains of 0.7% in March and 0.6% in February. April's increase also marked the largest monthly rise since March 2022.

Stripping out volatile food, energy and trade services, so-called core PPI measure rose 0.6% in April, matching the strongest monthly increase since October 2025. Over the past year, core PPI was up 4.4% - the largest annual rise since February 2023. Traders expected to see a headline increase of 0.5% month-on-month, while core PPI was pegged to rise 0.4% on the month.

Donald Trump's high-stakes meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping was also likely to draw an amount of investor attention. The summit follows treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese vice premier He Lifeng's meeting in South Korea, where the two sides held a discussion centred on economic and trade issues.

In the corporate space, Nvidia traded higher in pre-market action after Donald Trump invited chief executive Jensen Huang to join him on his journey to China, while Alibaba's US-listed shares headed south following the company's announcement that core profitability had slumped in the three months ended 31 March amid heavy investments in tech and e-commerce.

Elsewhere on the macro front, mortgage applications increased by 1.7% in the week ended 8 May, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, despite consistently high borrowing costs, with benchmark mortgage rates rising to their highest level in more than a month. Applications to buy a new home rose 4%, reflecting some traction for new residences, while applications to refinance a mortgage, which are typically more sensitive to short-term interest rate changes, softened by 1%.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

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