Wall Street heads for record loss – Beyond Meat is up more than 30 percent

new York A surprisingly sharp rise in US consumer data has further fueled concerns about rate hikes on Wall Street. The Dow Jones standard value index closed one percent lower on Friday at 32,816 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.7 percent to 11,394 points. The broad S&P 500 lost 1.1 percent to 3970 points.

The personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index – considered the Fed’s favorite index – rose 0.6 percent in January after 0.2 percent in December. US consumer spending also rose more than expected in January, at 1.8 percent. Analysts had expected 1.3 percent.

“This clearly suggests the Fed has more to do,” said analyst Phil Blancato of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management. At the beginning of February, the monetary authorities had increased the key rate by just 0.25 percentage points. According to Blancato, an interest rate hike of 0.50 percentage points in March is now considered likely.