Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Oct. 22, 2025. <\/p>\n
Brendan McDermid | Reuters<\/p>\n
U.S. equity futures gained on Friday as the latest inflation data increased investors’ optimism about how many more times the Federal Reserve could cut rates this year.<\/p>\n
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a> added 232 points, or 0.5%. S&P futures<\/a> gained 0.7%, while Nasdaq 100 futures<\/a> added 0.9%.<\/p>\n The September consumer price index report came in at 3% on a 12-month basis, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Excluding food and energy, core CPI was at 3% compared to a year ago. Economists polled by Dow Jones had expected the CPI as well as core CPI to come in at a 3.1% annual rate. While the data was lighter than expected, it still increased from the prior month’s figure of 2.9%.<\/p>\n The report has grown in importance given the lack of federal data<\/a> being released amid the ongoing U.S. government shutdown, which entered its 24th day Friday. Traders were betting that an in-line or lighter CPI would pave the way for the Fed to cut rates at its two remaining meetings in 2025.<\/p>\n “There was little in today’s benign CPI report to “spook” the Fed and we continue to expect further easing at next week’s Fed meeting,” said Lindsay Rosner, head of multi sector fixed income investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. “A December rate cut also remains likely with the current data drought providing the Fed with little reason to deviate from the path set out in the dot plot.”<\/p>\n Stock futures largely ignored a proclamation from President Donald Trump that he was ending trade negotiations with Canada<\/a> because of an advertisement used by Ontario featuring former President Ronald Reagan “speaking negatively” about tariffs. The ad, which Trump deemed “FAKE,” quotes Reagan’s presidential radio address from April 1987, in which the former president says that “trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer” in the long run.<\/p>\n A number of strong earnings results helped sentiment on Friday. Intel<\/a> shares popped 6% in early trading after the chipmaker reported third-quarter sales that exceeded analysts’ estimates<\/a>, while Procter & Gamble<\/a> gained 3% after its first-quarter earnings and revenue<\/a> topped Wall Street’s expectations.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Target<\/a> shares rose marginally after the retailer announced<\/a>\u00a0it would slash its corporate workforce by 8%, marking\u00a0its first major layoff in a decade. <\/p>\n The three major U.S. indexes ended the previous session higher, driven by inflows into tech stocks and bullish sentiment heading into the heat of third-quarter earnings season. The S&P 500 rose nearly 0.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0gained 144 points, or 0.3%. The tech-heavy\u00a0Nasdaq Composite<\/a>\u00a0outperformed, closing the day 0.9% higher as heavyweight AI stocks such as Nvidia<\/a> and Oracle<\/a> got a boost.<\/p>\n Stocks are on pace to notch weekly gains, after Thursday’s moves erased Wednesday’s losses. The S&P 500 is tracking for a 1.1% gain, while the Nasdaq and the 30-stock Dow are up nearly 1.2% week to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Oct.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4117,84,273,141,4126,29130,467,39174,4140,30611,186,19334,23855,39173,4118,37728,56,54,158,55],"class_list":["post-222656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-markets","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-dow-jones-industrial-average","tag-intel-corp","tag-markets","tag-nasdaq-100-fut-sep25","tag-nvidia-corp","tag-oracle-corp","tag-prices","tag-procter-gamble-co","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-sp-500-fut-sep25","tag-stock-markets","tag-target-corp","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}