U.S. stocks tumble for 4th day in a row on hotter-than-expected inflation report

U.S. stocks closed lower on Wednesday for the fourth day in a row after the latest consumer price index showed that headline inflation climbed to its highest level in 40 years last month. The S&P 500
SPX,
-0.45%
retreated 17.02 points, or 0.5%, to 3,801.78. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.67%
lost 208.54 points, or 0.7%, to 30,772.79. The Nasdaq Composite Index
NDX,
-0.14%
shed 17.15 points, or 0.2%, to 11,247.58. Traders of Fed funds futures, a derivatives market used to place bets on the direction of the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate, priced in higher than 80% odds that the Federal Reserve would deliver a one percentage point rate later this month. Meanwhile, the yield on the two-year Treasury eclipsed that of the 10-year Treasury by more than 23 basis points, marking the deepest inversion of the Treasury yield curve since 2000.