Shares of tech juggernaut Amazon slid after the company posted a quarterly loss and offered a weaker-than-expected current-quarter forecast.  Apple’s stock also declined even after the iPhone-maker exceeded quarterly sales and profit estimates, though the company still cited ongoing supply chain constraints.

A measure that the Federal Reserve focuses on to gauge inflation rose in March, likely cementing the central bank’s intention to raise interest rates by half a percentage in May.  The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which measures costs that consumers pay across a wide swath of items and accounts for how behavior changes in response to market dynamics, increased 5.2% from a year ago.

Pending home sales declined in March for the fifth month in a row as buyers weigh rising interest rates and soaring prices.  The latest data from the National Association of Realtors indicates new contracts fell by 1.2% last month from February.  Sales were down by 8.2% year over year, with pending sales slipping across all four regions of the U.S. to the lowest level in nearly two years.  The sudden large gains in mortgage rates have reduced the pool of eligible homebuyers, and that has consequently lowered buying activity.  Homebuyer competition also dropped in March according to a recent report from RedFin, which showed the number of bidding wars declined for the first time in six months.