Market Midday: Stocks Mixed, Wholesale Inflation Up, Retail Sales Lifted by Gas • 10/15/26

0:01See NBC Business News update market midday. The tech sell-off easing a little bit this afternoon, although more money seems to be moving into Dow stocks with the Dow soaring up 541 points. One percent Nike shares leading it higher now. They're up almost six and a half percent. The S &P 500 index solidly in the green up 21 and the Nasdaq's down only 24 points now. Chipmaker shares have turned mixed. Qualcomm up 2.5%. Micron now in the green. A sell-off for some AI-related stocks. Concerns about too much AI spending and too much debt. Inflation at the wholesale level soared in September, making its biggest jump in four years.

0:50Here's CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Leisman. Yeah, coming a little hot on the PPI here. That month over month, PPI final demand up 1.3. The consensus was 0.5. PPI measures input costs, and these can hint at how much prices will eventually go up for consumers down the line. Here's a take from SMBC economist Joe Livornia with CNBC's Sarah Eisen and whether the Fed could raise interest rates at the end of the month. How problematic are these inflation readings? They're problematic, Sarah, in the sense that inflation is not coming down as quickly as many have been thinking. It's the reason why the Fed always needed to hike this year.

1:28We've got a boom. It's just not a disinflationary boom. It's an inflationary boom. And inflation is going to be sticky to the extent this Middle East crisis continues to drag on. That's also a factor. It will mean there are more rate hikes coming, Sarah. They're just not going to hike in October. Retail sales came in more than twice as hot as forecast last month. But much of that was because of high gas prices. Consumers aren't necessarily buying more things. They're just paying more money for the same things they always buy. Here's a take from EY Parthenon's Gregory Daco on CNBC. Inflation is still front and center for many consumers.

2:08And the income erosion phenomenon, where people feel like they have less spending capacity, is capping the pace of growth. So, yes, nominal figures are high, but that's a price story. A volume story is much different where you have much more moderate consumer spending momentum. Former Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker believes that the Fed will raise interest rates at the meeting at the end of the month, partly to signal it's serious about this rising inflation. This result, the CPI result, they weren't good. There's things they can't do anything about, like diesel. I mean, the price of diesel is filtering through the economy.

2:42If it comes on trucks, it's going to cost more bucks. That's the reality. Apple and Facebook and Instagram parent Meta teaming up to make Meta's Muse AI model run on Mac computers. Muse has been a top app download in Apple's App Store. People are starting to use it as an AI assistant. Americans are pushing back against data centers. Republicans in many places aren't behind them as much right now heading into the midterms. CNBC's Pippa Stevens is in Ohio. Data centers are top of mind here in Ohio as people prepare to head to the polls. They're basically all now saying the same thing, which is that these decisions should come down to local communities.

3:25Now, President Trump was notably in Ohio earlier this month. He was talking about the benefits of data centers, saying they will bring a lot of revenue to Ohio. So it's a notable shift from the Republicans on the ticket here in Ohio that are clearly responding to backlash against data centers. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC.