Key Highlights

● October CPI will skip year-over-year figures.

● The 2025 Government Shutdown left no October 2025 reading.

● The report is due at 8:30 a.m. ET on November 10.

● Monthly numbers will take the spotlight.

Most months, the first number people quote from the Consumer Price Index is the annual Inflation rate: how much prices have risen compared with the same month a year earlier. Tuesday's October report will skip that comparison entirely.

The reason is a hole in the data. According to news reports, the October CPI due at 8:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, November 10, will not include year-over-year figures because the 2025 government shutdown left no October 2025 reading. Without a base month from last year, there is nothing to measure against.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles the index every month, and annual comparisons depend on having a matching reading from a year earlier. The 2025 shutdown broke that chain, and the gap is now showing up twelve months later.

Monthly numbers take the spotlight

That puts all the attention on the month-over-month changes. Economists expect headline consumer prices to rise at roughly half the pace recorded in September, according to market coverage. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy, is also expected to cool from the prior month.

Monthly figures are useful, but they can be bumpy. A single month can be swayed by seasonal quirks, gasoline swings or one-off changes in categories like airfares or used cars. Without the steadier annual figure, investors may react more sharply to small surprises.

Why the timing is awkward

The report lands at a sensitive moment. It is the final CPI release before the Federal Reserve's December 8-9 meeting, and traders see a hike as highly likely. CME FedWatch data on Monday showed the odds of a December increase rising from Friday.

Fed officials have sounded concerned. On Monday, November 9, 2026, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said, according to market reports, that inflation "was supposed to have gone away by now, and we're starting to see inflation kicking up in areas." Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said "the risk lies on the inflation side of our dual mandate," reports said.

Policymakers will still have plenty of other information, including private-sector price gauges, the New York Fed's consumer survey and producer prices due Friday. But the CPI is the headline number the public watches most.

Markets on Monday

Investors went into the report in a buoyant mood. The S&P 500 jumped 173.08 points to 7,549.94, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 1,104.02 points to 52,389.75, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 673.71 points to 25,253.14. Chip stocks such as Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) and Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) led a rebound from last week's AI selloff.

Oil helped too. Brent Crude tumbled to $92.57 on hopes of a US-Iran peace deal, reports said. Lower fuel costs could show up in future monthly CPI readings, though October's data will largely reflect the period before the latest slide.

The two-year Treasury Yield rose to about 4.57, according to market data, as traders priced in more tightening.

Monthly Figures Fill the Gap

On Tuesday, look first at the monthly headline and core changes and how they compare with forecasts. Services prices will draw extra scrutiny given Goolsbee's comments. With no annual figure to anchor the headlines, commentary may vary more than usual in how it frames the data.

Because annual comparisons need a reading from the same month a year earlier, they rely on an unbroken run of data. For now, investors will lean on monthly trends, Friday's producer price index and the Fed's December 8-9 decision for direction.