How to Trade CPI (the US Consumer Price Index)

The Consumer Price Index measures the average change over time in the prices urban consumers pay for a basket of goods and services (BLS). The BLS publishes it at 08:30 ET; in 2026 releases fall between the 10th and 14th of the month after the reference month (BLS release schedule).

• Headline CPI includes all items.
• Core CPI excludes food and energy, which together account for about 20% of the index (BLS relative importance). Core is the measure the market uses to judge the trend.

The Fed's 2% target is defined in terms of the PCE price index rather than CPI (Federal Reserve), but CPI is released first and many of its prices feed into PCE. The PCE guide covers the differences.

Releases can be disrupted. No October 2025 CPI was published, because prices could not be collected during the government shutdown, and the November report moved from 10th to 18th December (BLS).

Core CPI M/M

The first figure the rates market reacts to. Monthly changes are small, so the market works to two decimal places: 0.25% and 0.34% both round to 0.3%, but annualise to roughly 3.0% and 4.2%. Several banks publish unrounded forecasts, and the unrounded print can be calculated from the published index levels.

Supercore

Core services excluding shelter. In a November 2022 speech then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell described core services other than housing, more than half of the core PCE index, as possibly "the most important category for understanding the future evolution of core inflation", and said that because wages are the largest cost in these services, "the labor market holds the key to understanding inflation in this category" (Federal Reserve). The financial press has called the category supercore (St. Louis Fed). In CPI it accounts for about a quarter of the index: services less energy services (60.7%) minus shelter (35.6%) (BLS relative importance), and Newsquawk publishes a supercore breakdown with each release (example).

Shelter

Shelter, mostly rent (7.8% of CPI) and owners' equivalent rent (26.2%), makes up 35.6% of CPI and about 45% of core (BLS relative importance). Shelter adjusts to market rents with a long lag, as existing leases turn over and catch up with rents on new leases (Federal Reserve), so analysts watch its trend over several months.

Core goods

Cars, clothing, furniture and other goods excluding food and energy. The category matters more when supply disruptions or tariffs push goods prices higher.

Volatile components

Used cars and motor vehicle insurance are each about 2.8% of the index, or about 3.5% of core (BLS relative importance), so a 3% move in used-car prices shifts core by about 0.1pp. Together with airline fares, they can decide whether a print lands above or below consensus.

• Consensus: the median forecast for core M/M is the reference point, and the spread of unrounded bank forecasts shows how uncertain the call is. Newsquawk's economic calendar carries the consensus.
• Cleveland Fed nowcast: daily nowcasts of CPI, core CPI, PCE and core PCE inflation. The headline estimates draw on oil and petrol prices; the core estimates are based on past core inflation (Cleveland Fed).
• Used-car prices: wholesale used-vehicle values, tracked by the Manheim index (Cox Automotive), give an early read on the direction of used-car prices.
• PPI: usually released after CPI, but not always; the August 2026 PPI came out the day before CPI (BLS PPI schedule). The BEA takes some PCE components from the PPI rather than the CPI (BEA), so the two releases together set expectations for PCE.
• Rates pricing: ahead of the August 2026 report, money markets priced 17.5bps of hikes for the September FOMC meeting (Newsquawk preview). The desk's CPI preview sets out what is priced before each release.

• Before the release: Newsquawk publishes a CPI preview covering consensus, the likely drivers and money-market pricing (August 2026 example).
• 08:30:00 ET: headline and core CPI, M/M and Y/Y, are released together. The desk headlines each figure and reads them out on the audio squawk.
• Within minutes: the unrounded core figure, and the supercore, shelter and core goods breakdown.
• Within hours: banks translate CPI into core PCE estimates, which Newsquawk publishes as they arrive (example).

• 10th June 2022 (May data): CPI rose 8.6% Y/Y against 8.3% expected, the highest since December 1981, and core rose 0.6% M/M against 0.5% expected (CNBC). The 2-year Treasury yield rose 23bps to 3.06% on the day (US Treasury), and on 15th June the Fed raised rates by 75bps, its biggest increase since 1994 (CNBC).
• 10th November 2022 (October data): core CPI rose 0.3% M/M against 0.5% expected (CNBC). The S&P 500 rose 5.54% and the Nasdaq 7.35% (CNBC), and the 2-year yield fell about 30bps (CNBC).
• 13th February 2024 (January data): core CPI rose 0.4% M/M against 0.3% expected (CNBC). The S&P 500 fell 1.37%, the Nasdaq 1.8% and the Russell 2000 nearly 4% (CNBC); the 2-year yield rose 19bps (CNBC) and gold fell 1.3% (CNBC).
• 11th September 2026 (August data): core CPI rose 0.3% M/M against 0.2% expected, and the implied probability of a hike at the September FOMC meeting rose from about 72% to between 86% and 90% (CNBC, CNBC). The S&P 500 still rose 0.86% that day as oil prices fell (CNBC). The Fed raised rates by 25bps on 16th September (Federal Reserve).