All three major US Wall Street indexes finished the session modestly lower after the Dow and the S&amp;P 500 had chalked up all-time highs Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Chinese stock markets rebounded somewhat after China's central bank took action to boost purchases of company shares.
As measured by the consumer price index, US annual inflation slowed to 2.4 percent in September from 2.5 percent in August, the government reported.
But a core measure of inflation that strips out volatile food and energy costs rose to 3.3 percent from 3.2 percent in August.
Earlier in the day, Shanghai's stock market closed 1.3 percent higher Thursday and Hong Kong rose 3.0 percent.

Wall Street stocks retreat from records on US inflation data