October CPI Report Forecast: Will Inflation Cool Off?
By:Mike Butler
The consumer price index (CPI) represents the change in price of a basket of consumer goods and services. This helps us understand how costs are changing over time, and with inflation surging in 2022, the CPI numbers have been high.
The CPI report will be released at 7:30am CST on Thursday, November 10th. The previous report showed an 8.2% increase, and the forecast is 7.9% for the report on Thursday.
With the stock market selling off aggressively ahead of the CPI announcement, the implied market move for the rest of the week remains quite high.
SPX is the cash-settled index that tracks the S&P 500. As you can see in the orange rectangle, the S&P500 has an expected move of +- $77.12 through Thursday the 10th.
This is a large chunk of the expected move that is expected over the next 8 days, which is +- $128.96. This lack of a difference in the expected move of the market over time tells us that the report tomorrow could move the market in a big way, so it’s imperative to understand what the CPI number comes in at, and most importantly, how the market digests the information in the form of market movement or lack-there-of.
If the CPI comes in under the projection, this may result in a bullish movement in the market as this would signal that inflation may be slowing down, slowly but surely. If it comes in at 7.9% or higher, this may trigger a bearish movement in the market, as this would signal that inflation is still alive and well.
All eyes will be on the S&P 500 the morning of November 10th, as the last CPI report triggered a near 100-point selloff in the S&P 500, almost exactly at 7:30am CST:
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