Stocks close mostly red after PPI jumps 6.5%, Goolsbee warns on inflation

Wall Street wrapped Friday's session mostly in the red. The Nasdaq 100 slid 1.22% by 4:00 pm ET, the S&P 500 dropped 0.40%, and the Dow Jones was the lone holdout with a 0.10% gain.

The day's headline number did the damage: producer prices climbed 6.5% year-over-year in October, the biggest annual jump since November 2022. On a monthly basis, PPI rose 0.3% — a softer reading than analysts had projected, which briefly had futures pointing up before the mood soured.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee didn't soften the blow. He said the central bank will probably have to act, describing inflation as far more persistent than expected.

Nvidia kept bleeding into the close, with the stock down 3.58% at 10:31 am ET as the fallout from CEO Jensen Huang's exit continued. Huang stepped down following reports of an extramarital affair with an alleged Chinese spy. The euro also slipped, losing 0.30% against the dollar at 3:59 pm ET to trade at $1.10237.

Traders still have something to watch after the bell: SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 is scheduled to launch once the closing bell rings.