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Stocks Fall After Fed Comments, Strong Retail Sales Data

Stocks fell Friday, following a solid retail-sales report that could bolster the case that the economy is strong and may not need support in the form of lower borrowing costs.

Separately, a Federal Reserve official said it was too soon to say whether the central bank should cut interest rates at its meeting next month.

Another rate cut in December is “certainly on the table, but it’s not a done deal,” said Boston Fed President Susan Collins in an interview late Thursday. “There’s more data that we will see between now and December, and we’ll have to continue to weigh what makes sense.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 350 points, or 0.8%. The S&P 500 dropped more than 1%, and the Nasdaq Composite was down about 2.5%.

The latest moves highlighted investor uncertainty about whether the Fed is in a position to continue cutting rates as much as markets have come to expect—in part because the economy continues to hold up well.

On Friday, the Commerce Department said that retail sales gained 0.4% in October from September, better than economists’ forecasts for a 0.3% increase. Officials also revised their figures for September sales growth sharply upward to 0.8%, from an initial estimate of 0.4% growth.

“Various speeches by Fed officials show growing concern that disinflation is hitting a wall,” Jefferies analyst Thomas Simons wrote to clients after the data Friday. “But we do not think there will be enough evidence to confirm these hypotheses before the next meeting.”

The Fed’s next meeting is Dec. 17-18. Officials will see data on inflation and employment for November before that meeting.

Collins said Thursday she didn’t see any evidence that inflation was picking up due to new sources of strength in the economy, aligning herself with a view Fed Chair Jerome Powell expressed last week. Both of them suggested recent inflation stickiness has instead been an echo or “catch-up” effect of large price increases from the past few years, such as car insurance costs rising to reflect past increases in car prices that have since subsided.

“As far as I can tell, I do not see evidence of new price pressures,” said Collins. Firmer inflation in recent months instead reflects “the effects of the longer-term dynamics of past shocks,” she said.

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