Stock Market Today: Wall Street Extends Slide as Inflation Gauge Nears

Data by YCharts.

The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) fell 0.5% to 6,604.72, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) declined 0.5% to 22,384.70. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) slipped 0.4% to 45,947.32. It was the third straight session of losses, with yields hovering near recent highs and traders reluctant to add risk ahead of key inflation data.

Attention is turning to Friday's release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, considered the Fed's preferred measure of inflation. The reading will help determine whether policymakers maintain a cautious stance on rate cuts after Chair Jerome Powell recently emphasized patience.

Economic signals added to the mixed picture. Jobless claims fell this past week, but hiring remains muted, pointing to a labor market losing steam. At the same time, second-quarter GDP was revised higher, underscoring resilience in growth despite tighter financial conditions.

On the corporate front, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) rose 8.9% on reports of investment talks with Apple, while IBM (NYSE: IBM) gained 5.2% on results from a quantum computing trial with HSBC. CarMax (NYSE: KMX) tumbled 20% after missing earnings expectations and warning on weak sales trends.

Market data sourced from Google Finance on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025.

Should you invest $1,000 in S&P 500 Index right now?

Before you buy stock in S&P 500 Index, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and S&P 500 Index wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $649,280!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,084,802!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,058% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 189% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of September 22, 2025

HSBC Holdings is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Daily Stock News has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. This article was generated with GPT-5, OpenAI's large-scale language generation model and has been reviewed by The Motley Fool's AI quality control systems. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, CarMax, Intel, International Business Machines, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends HSBC Holdings and recommends the following options: short November 2025 $21 puts on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.