Posted on 01/15/2025 7:52:16 AM PST by Red Badger
Stocks surged on Wednesday after the latest consumer price index report showed core inflation unexpectedly slowed in December, and major U.S. banks kicked off quarterly earnings reporting season with blowout results.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 630 points higher, or 1.5%. The S&P 500 climbed 1.6%, and the Nasdaq Composite rallied 2.2%.
December’s consumer price index showed that core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 3.2%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. This was a notch down from the previous month and lower than the 3.3% estimated by economists surveyed by Dow Jones. Headline inflation increased 2.9% on a 12-month basis, in line with forecasts.
“The market [is] breathing a sigh of relief as back-to-back inflation gauges, PPI yesterday and CPI this morning, came in slightly below expectations,” said John Kerschner, head of U.S. securitized products and portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors. “Perhaps most importantly, today’s CPI number takes additional rate hikes off the table, which some market participants were beginning to prematurely price in.”
The 10-year Treasury yield sharply dropped on the back of the CPI report and was last down 14 basis points at 4.651%. Growth stocks such as Tesla and Nvidia popped around 5% and 2%, respectively, as Treasury yields dove.
Fourth-quarter earnings reporting got off to a positive start Wednesday, with big banks managing to broadly top the Street’s expectations. JPMorgan Chase shares rose slightly after the bank reported an EPS and revenue beat, which was driven by strong fixed income trading and investment banking results.
Shares of Goldman Sachs popped more than 6% after the bank posted a top- and bottom-line beat in the previous quarter, and Wells Fargo shares jumped 5.3% after the bank said net interest income would be 1% to 3% higher in 2025. Citigroup also gained 6% after beating fourth-quarter estimates.
“We got a good start today to earnings season. The bank earnings are key because the financial sector is so tied to the general economy. So for these big banks to put up bullish numbers today, I think it does bode well,” said Larry Tentarelli, chief technical strategist at Blue Chip Daily Trend Report.
Warning: the “low” 3.2% inflation rate excludes food and energy costs, not that those are important or anything.
LOL, after the Fed lowered rates for Biden to help him and Kamala win re-election.
I wonder why ALL the Executive Branch data looks so healthy during Biden's last two full months in the White House?
No Harris-Walz tax on unrealized gains...Hubba-hubba!
I wonder why ALL the Executive Branch data looks so healthy during Biden’s last two full months in the White House?
Too late to help the Rats now. I think it has more to do with the knowledge that Biden is about to leave.
I think it has to do with the Hard Left Executive Branch waiting to dump ALL the bad economic news on Donald Trump and his appointees!
Adjustments later are very much normal. They will happen upcoming and probably won’t look good.
Besides which this report was not that spectacular. Headline numbers were as expected. And there was one 0.1 downtick in core.
Yeah, core is important stuff and does exclude energy and food to reduce volatility, but one of the failures of this agency is they do not do ongoing reviews of the magnitude of volatility to determine if there should still be a separate core report. It was once warranted, but there is no ongoing review to see if it still is.
The economy is strong, full employment, earnings of most companies are very good, inflation still sticky but 3% is incredibly better than 9%. If inflation going from 9 to 3% wasn’t noticeable, going from 3 to 2 won’t be noticeable either. It’s a great time to start a business.
https://www.morningstar.com/economy/whats-your-real-inflation-rate
Food costs have seen the second-highest rate of inflation over the past year, and they’re less likely to be variable among different consumers. (Everyone has to eat!) Even so, there are some interesting variations in the rates of inflation among subcategories, and they might affect whether your personal rate of food inflation is higher or lower than the baseline food inflation rate of 10.9% reflected in CPI. For example, the cost of food prepared at home has increased at a nearly 14% rate over the past year, whereas the cost of food consumed away from home (for example, in restaurants) has jumped by just 8%. Cereal and bakery-product prices have increased by more than 16%, whereas fruit and vegetable prices have escalated by a less painful 9%. Alcoholic beverage prices have seen a relatively mild inflation rate of 4.3%, but coffee drinkers have contended with a more painful 18% inflation rate over the past year.
Alcoholic beverage prices have seen a relatively mild inflation rate of 4.3%
some good news?
How come the pricing for most illegal drugs has been unaffected, even when this current inflation was at its worst?
.......
I’d think their price relies heavily on supply and demand, when supply is short, price increases, when supply is flowing, price decreases. It still the same method for a long time to make drugs, and most of it would be made in a country where they have easy access to the items to make them, take cocaine for example. Made the same way, production isn’t slowing down any time soon, and it costs them next to nothing to create
The Hunter Biden effect...............
Trump needs to send someone over to accurately re figure all these fake numbers.
They aren’t fake, the company earnings and the low unemployment rate and tells us that much. The $6 trillion dollars in Money Market Funds tells us also. The 37% of homes owned free and clear tells us also.
We have a huge split between productive people doing very well and less productive people falling behind. The problem isn’t the economy, it’s the people. The opportunities out there are many and large.
I give it 6 months before they pull the switch.
No there is a serious disconnect between the top 10% doing really really well and the rest suffering
it pretty common in socialized economies. They divide people into a small % of very well off and and everyone else suffering. They last 4 years the Biden regime has bene purposely pushing polices to “reduce US consumption” to “save the planet
It this blind spot of elites where they frequently confuse their doing well for the over all economy doing well.
It is not
Even upper middle class people are seeing virtually their whole discretionary income being eaten up by every increasing costs for necessities.
This is one of the reasons they lost. Their bragging about “the great Biden economy” was not relected in their day to day lives.
Billionaires did great with Biden, the rest of us, not so much.
Current US Labor participation rate at 62.5 is tied for the lowest it ever been.
The Biden regime simply shifted people off the unemployment number to hide the actual employment figured. Unemployment is not actually low, it just another “lying by statistical manipulation”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.