Wall Street tumbles at close as worries mount ahead of CPI report

Wall Street ended in negative territory on Tuesday as growing signs of recession kept buyers out of the equities market ahead of inflation data.

While all three major U.S. stock indexes seesawed between modest gains and losses earlier in the session, they turned sharply lower late in the day as Wednesday's Consumer Prices report from the Labor Department drew near, with big bank earnings looming later in the week.

While the CPI report is expected to show inflation gathered heat in June, the so-called "core" CPI, which strips away volatile food and energy prices, is seen offering further confirmation that inflation has peaked, which could potentially convince the Federal Reserve to ease on its policy tightening in autumn.

Paul Kim, chief executive officer at Simplify ETFs in New York, expects year-on-year topline CPI to "be in the high eight or potentially even nine percentage range, and with inflation that high, the Fed has only one thing in mind."

The market expects the central bank to raise the key Fed funds target rate by 75 basis points at the conclusion of its July policy meeting, which would mark its third consecutive interest rate hike.

All 11 major sectors in the S&P 500 fell, with energy shares , weighed down by plunging crude prices, suffering the largest percentage loss.

The second-quarter reporting season will hit full stride later in the week as $JPMorgan(JPM.US)$, $Morgan Stanley(MS.US)$, $Citigroup(C.US)$ and $Wells Fargo & Co(WFC.US)$ post results.

As of Friday, analysts saw aggregate annual S&P earnings growth of 5.7% for the April to June period, down from the 6.8% forecast at the beginning of the quarter, according to Refinitiv.

$PepsiCo(PEP.US)$ got the ball rolling this week by beating its quarterly earnings estimates and announced it could increase prices amid resilient demand.

Shares of $Boeing(BA.US)$ jumped 7.4% after the plane maker's June aircraft deliveries hit the highest monthly level since March 2019. That news, along with falling energy prices, helped the S&P 1500 Air Lines index rise 6.1%.

Software provider $ServiceNow(NOW.US)$ plunged 12.7% after its CEO's remarks about macro headwinds and currency pressures. Other software companies, including $Salesforce(CRM.US)$ , $Paycom Software(PAYC.US)$ , $Intuit(INTU.US)$ and $Microsoft(MSFT.US)$ , were also down. $SPDR S&P 500 ETF(SPY.US)$ $Invesco QQQ Trust(QQQ.US)$