Markets Stay Flat Ahead of CPI Tuesday Morning
You don’t get much flatter than this, folks. Market indices climbed out of the negative territory we saw in today’s pre-market by mid-day, and just sort of stayed there. The Dow was up +54 points, +0.16%, but this was pulled forward by a strong day from Boeing BA; the S&P 500 dipped -0.08%, the Nasdaq took a few profits, -0.22%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 gained +0.01%.
The good news for Boeing came this morning, when it was announced the aerospace giant is selling 125 777X wide-body jets to Emirates Airlines, the Dubai-based company that also owns flyDubai. This deal is reportedly worth $52 billion. (777X jets include both the 777-8 and 777-9 models.) Expectations are for the jets to be delivered in 2025. Aside from gaining +4% in today’s session, Boeing is up +15% from late-October lows for the year.
Other than this, however, and with most of the marquee names for Q3 earnings season already reported, we’ve been pretty uneventful today — but for good reason: tomorrow morning brings us October Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers, one of the most important gauges tracking domestic inflation. Month over month and headline year over year (aka the Inflation Rate) are expected to cool down further, helping bring down inflation the way the Fed intends with elevated interest rate levels.
Perhaps most important of all may be core CPI year over year, which is expected to remain even with the previous month at +4.1%. This suggests stickier inflation when we strip out volatile food and energy costs, though we have come down considerably over the past 12 months — from +6.3% in October of last year. Yes, we’re still double where the Fed considers optimum inflation levels, but this steady, gradual move downward is a good indication that the efforts to cool the economy have not (thus far) dragged our economy into recession.
Home Depot HD reports earnings Tuesday, kicking off Retail Week(s) toward the end of earnings season, and already within the holiday shopping quarter just begun. Target TGT and TJX Companies TJX report in Wednesday, and Walmart WMT, Macy’s M and others are out Thursday. By Friday of this week — even with another couple weeks or so of earnings season to go — we should have a good take on where the American consumer is situated going into the end of 2023.
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