U.S. stocks traded lower in the final hour of trading on Wednesday with three indexes turning lower after morning gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.10% fell 184 points and the S&P 500 SPX, +0.34% lost 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.74% declined by 0.1%. Investors were struggling to find their footing after three benchmark indexes Tuesday saw their worst daily losses since June 2020 as August’s disappointing inflation data likely implied another historically large interest-rate hike from the Federal Reserve. Earlier Wednesday, the August producer-price index, or PPI, which measures the cost of wholesale goods and services, dropped 0.1% in August, mostly due to lower gasoline prices. Core PPI, a separate measure of wholesale prices that excludes volatile food and energy costs, rose by 0.2% in August.
