Inflation worries push US stocks lower

Wall Street’s chronic inflation fears sent stocks skidding today as a sharp jump in wholesale prices overshadowed strong profit reports from several Dow Jones industrials. Heavy selling in the energy sector also pressured the major indexes.

Better-than-expected earnings from Johnson & Johnson, IBM Corp. and United Technologies Corp. were overlooked by investors preoccupied by the biggest increase in the Labour Department’s Producer Price Index in 15 years.