{"id":60259,"date":"2026-03-27T14:09:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-plummets-as-inflation-data-sparks-flight-to-defensives\/60259\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T14:09:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:09:44","slug":"dowjonestodaydow-jones-plummets-as-inflation-data-sparks-flight-to-defensives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-plummets-as-inflation-data-sparks-flight-to-defensives\/60259\/","title":{"rendered":"[DowJonesToday]Dow Jones Plummets as Inflation Data Sparks Flight to Defensives"},"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> was down <strong>710.40 (-1.55%)<\/strong> points today, falling to <strong>45,249.71<\/strong>. Similarly, <strong>Dow Futures (<a href=\"\/stock\/YM=F\">YM=F<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>685.00 (-1.48%)<\/strong> points at <strong>45,545.00<\/strong>. The primary narrative driving this sharp decline was the release of the <strong>February Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE)<\/strong> price index, which revealed that <strong>inflationary pressures<\/strong> remain more persistent than economists had anticipated. This data, combined with <strong>hawkish policy signals<\/strong> from <strong>Federal Reserve<\/strong> officials, led traders to price out near-term interest rate cuts, causing a significant rotation out of growth-oriented equities and into defensive safe havens as market volatility increased.<\/p>\n<p>Significant losses were concentrated in the healthcare, technology, and financial sectors. <strong>UnitedHealth Group Inc. (<a href=\"\/stock\/UNH\">UNH<\/a>)<\/strong> led the laggards, down <strong>4.06%<\/strong> to <strong>$257.36<\/strong>, while <strong>Salesforce (<a href=\"\/stock\/CRM\">CRM<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>3.34%<\/strong>. Tech-heavy components felt the heat of rising yields, with <strong>Amazon (<a href=\"\/stock\/AMZN\">AMZN<\/a>)<\/strong> down <strong>3.32%<\/strong> and <strong>Cisco Systems (<a href=\"\/stock\/CSCO\">CSCO<\/a>)<\/strong> down <strong>2.82%<\/strong>. Financial giants also retreated; <strong>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. (<a href=\"\/stock\/JPM\">JPM<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>2.88%<\/strong> and <strong>Visa (<a href=\"\/stock\/V\">V<\/a>)<\/strong> was down <strong>2.78%<\/strong>. Other major decliners included <strong>Goldman Sachs (<a href=\"\/stock\/GS\">GS<\/a>)<\/strong>, which was down <strong>2.68%<\/strong>, and <strong>IBM (<a href=\"\/stock\/IBM\">IBM<\/a>)<\/strong>, which was down <strong>2.62%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, investors sought refuge in defensive stocks and energy. <strong>Chevron (<a href=\"\/stock\/CVX\">CVX<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>1.81%<\/strong> at <strong>$211.56<\/strong>, while <strong>Coca-Cola (<a href=\"\/stock\/KO\">KO<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>1.67%<\/strong>. <strong>Johnson &amp; Johnson (<a href=\"\/stock\/JNJ\">JNJ<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>1.22%<\/strong>, followed by <strong>Merck (<a href=\"\/stock\/MRK\">MRK<\/a>)<\/strong> up <strong>1.11%<\/strong>. Retail giant <strong>Walmart (<a href=\"\/stock\/WMT\">WMT<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>1.08%<\/strong> at <strong>$123.45<\/strong>, and <strong>Procter &amp; Gamble (<a href=\"\/stock\/PG\">PG<\/a>)<\/strong> was up <strong>0.88%<\/strong>. These gains reflect a flight to quality as investors prioritized stability in <strong>Consumer Staples<\/strong> and <strong>Energy<\/strong> amid shifting macroeconomic expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was down 710.40 (-1.55%) points today, falling to 45,249.71. Similarly, Dow Futures (YM=F) was [&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":[186,277,298,373,3016,3749,4350,17074],"class_list":["post-60259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snippets-dow-jones","tag-ko","tag-wmt","tag-cvx","tag-unh","tag-dji","tag-pce","tag-dow-jones","tag-stock-market-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60259","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=60259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60259\/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=60259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}