Merchants work on the ground on the New York Inventory Alternate in New York Metropolis, U.S., Dec. 17, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
U.S. equities had been on tempo to snap a four-day slide on Thursday, boosted by lighter-than-expected inflation knowledge that brightened the outlook for decrease rates of interest in 2026.
The Dow Jones Industrial Common traded up 398 factors, or 0.8%. The S&P 500 popped 1.3%, whereas the Nasdaq Composite superior 1.8%.
The delayed November shopper worth index report — the primary one issued to the general public after the U.S. authorities shutdown ended final month — confirmed that the headline annual inflation charge was 2.7%, in line with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 12-month charge for core CPI, which excludes meals and power, was 2.6%. Economists polled by Dow Jones had anticipated the speed for the headline measure and core CPI to return in at 3.1% and three%, respectively.
The report, which did not embrace month-over-month p.c modifications, was pushed again from its unique launch date of Dec. 10. The BLS had canceled the discharge of the October inflation report in late November because of the longest-ever U.S. authorities shutdown, which means that Thursday’s studying didn’t have all the same old knowledge factors of a typical CPI report. The company mentioned it wasn’t capable of retroactively accumulate the October knowledge, although it was ready to make use of “nonsurvey knowledge sources” to make the index calculations.
Given the shortage of October comparability knowledge, economists won’t place an excessive amount of significance on this studying as the start of a downward development in inflation. Nonetheless, shares prolonged their features after the report, as preliminary jobless claims had been beneath what economists had estimated as effectively.
“It does appear that the inflation got here down a bit bit faster than you may need thought, so the December knowledge could roll it again a bit bit,” mentioned Chris O’Keefe, lead portfolio supervisor at Logan Capital Administration. “I feel that we have gotten … as traders a bit bit extra accepting of the truth that 2% inflation merely will not be attainable within the present surroundings, however we’ll see.”
Micron Expertise additionally supplied a lift to the broader market Thursday, leaping 11% after the semiconductor play topped Wall Road estimates on the highest and backside strains for the fiscal first quarter and supplied a robust income forecast for the present interval. Micron helped rekindle the synthetic intelligence commerce, which has seen weak spot in latest classes.
“Micron’s report was indicative of the truth that spending goes to be large and proceed to be large going for the following 12-18 months,” O’Keefe mentioned. “There might be winners and losers on this, and that should get sorted out, however in the event you comply with the earnings right here, I would not surrender on the AI commerce. I feel that a few of these shares now have simply large upside given the pullbacks.”
Shares are coming off of a tough buying and selling session, pressured by sharp losses in main semiconductor names tied to the synthetic intelligence commerce. The S&P 500 and the 30-stock Dow closed out their fourth adverse day. The Nasdaq Composite was the laggard of the three main indices, dropping virtually 2%.
Within the common session, Oracle slid greater than 5% after the Monetary Instances reported that the cloud infrastructure firm’s main investor pulled out of its $10 billion Michigan knowledge heart. Considerations in regards to the excessive capital prices behind large knowledge heart offers, resembling Oracle’s, despatched shivers all through the market and led a number of chipmakers to say no in sympathy all through the session. Broadcom misplaced 4.5%, whereas shares of Nvidia and Superior Micro Gadgets additionally fell.
At the same time as traders have been rotating away from tech names as of late, the sector is on tempo to finish 2025 with a roughly 20% advance.
