{"id":59929,"date":"2026-03-18T17:09:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T21:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-plummets-as-inflation-concerns-resurface\/59929\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T17:09:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T21:09:51","slug":"dowjonestodaydow-jones-plummets-as-inflation-concerns-resurface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-plummets-as-inflation-concerns-resurface\/59929\/","title":{"rendered":"[DowJonesToday]Dow Jones Plummets as Inflation Concerns Resurface"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/markets\/dowjones\/today.aspx\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Dow Jones Today\">Dow Jones<\/a> Industrial Average (<a href=\"\/stock\/%5EDJI\">^DJI<\/a>)<\/strong> saw a sharp decline on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, as the index <strong>was down 768.11 (-1.63%) points today<\/strong>, closing at <strong>46,225.15<\/strong>. <strong>Dow Futures (<a href=\"\/stock\/YM=F\">YM=F<\/a>)<\/strong> also signaled significant weakness, falling <strong>926.00 (-1.96%)<\/strong> points to <strong>46,422.00<\/strong>. This volatility was primarily triggered by a hotter-than-expected <strong>Consumer Price Index (CPI)<\/strong> report, which fueled fears that the <strong>Federal Reserve<\/strong> will maintain elevated interest rates longer than previously anticipated by Wall Street analysts.<\/p>\n<p>This &quot;higher-for-longer&quot; narrative weighed heavily on the broader market, particularly impacting consumer-facing sectors. However, the energy and financial sectors provided a small cushion. <strong>Chevron (<a href=\"\/stock\/CVX\">CVX<\/a>)<\/strong> led the gainers, rising <strong>0.73%<\/strong> to <strong>$199.52<\/strong>. Banking giants also benefited from higher yield projections, with <strong>JPMorgan Chase (<a href=\"\/stock\/JPM\">JPM<\/a>)<\/strong> up <strong>0.56%<\/strong> to <strong>$288.60<\/strong> as profit margins improved, and <strong>Goldman Sachs (<a href=\"\/stock\/GS\">GS<\/a>)<\/strong> climbing <strong>0.40%<\/strong> to <strong>$811.10<\/strong>. <strong>Honeywell (<a href=\"\/stock\/HON\">HON<\/a>)<\/strong> rounded out the few gainers with a <strong>0.18%<\/strong> increase at <strong>$232.17<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The sell-off was most pronounced in consumer staples and discretionary stocks. <strong>Procter &amp; Gamble (<a href=\"\/stock\/PG\">PG<\/a>)<\/strong> was the session&#39;s biggest laggard, dropping <strong>2.94%<\/strong> to <strong>$147.14<\/strong>. <strong>Nike (<a href=\"\/stock\/NKE\">NKE<\/a>)<\/strong> followed closely, dropping <strong>2.87%<\/strong> to <strong>$53.63<\/strong>, while <strong>Visa (<a href=\"\/stock\/V\">V<\/a>)<\/strong> slipped <strong>2.85%<\/strong> to end at <strong>$299.77<\/strong>. Other significant decliners included <strong>Sherwin-Williams (<a href=\"\/stock\/SHW\">SHW<\/a>)<\/strong>, down <strong>2.71%<\/strong>, and <strong>McDonald&#39;s (<a href=\"\/stock\/MCD\">MCD<\/a>)<\/strong>, which lost <strong>2.60%<\/strong>. Tech giants were not immune; <strong>Microsoft (<a href=\"\/stock\/MSFT\">MSFT<\/a>)<\/strong> and <strong>Apple (<a href=\"\/stock\/AAPL\">AAPL<\/a>)<\/strong> fell <strong>1.63%<\/strong> and <strong>1.60%<\/strong> respectively, as the higher rate outlook pressured growth valuations across the entire equity board. This broad-based retreat highlights the market&#39;s sensitivity to monetary policy shifts as 2026 progresses, leaving investors cautious about the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) saw a sharp decline on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, as the index was down [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"rank_math_schema_Article":[],"rank_math_focus_keyword":[],"rank_math_description":[],"financial_data_references":[],"stock_symbols_mentioned":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[17736],"tags":[174,298,1160,3016,3710,3712,3785,4223,4380],"class_list":["post-59929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snippets-dow-jones","tag-jpm","tag-cvx","tag-nke","tag-dji","tag-federal-reserve","tag-cpi","tag-pg","tag-inflation","tag-stock-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}