October CPI Due Tuesday With No Annual Rate. Economists Expect 0.3% Monthly Rise as December Fed Hike Odds Near 77%

Since the Federal Reserve raised its target range by 25 basis points to 3.75% to 4% on Sept. 16 and then held on Oct. 28, every inflation report has been read as a vote on whether the Fed hikes again. The October Consumer Price Index, due at 8:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Nov. 10, is the last CPI the Fed sees before its Dec. 8-9 meeting. It will also be missing its most-quoted number.

No annual rate this time

The Bureau of Labor Statistics collected no survey prices during the federal funding lapse that ran from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, 2025, and never issued an October 2025 CPI. Under the bureau's rule, it will not publish 12-month changes for October 2026 for any index that lacks an October 2025 reading. That covers most series, including all items, core, energy, food and rent.

The exceptions are indexes built partly or wholly from non-survey sources, which the bureau was able to back-fill. Gasoline, new vehicles, and used cars and trucks have October 2025 values, so their annual changes will appear.

The last full annual reading was 3.7% for September, up from 3.4% in August and below the 4.2% peak in May. Core ran at 2.6%.

The bureau also plans to publish final chained CPI estimates for October through December 2025 on Tuesday.

What forecasters expect

The median in a Bloomberg survey of economists is a 0.3% monthly rise in headline CPI and 0.2% in core. September's numbers were 0.6% and 0.3%. The September headline jump was the biggest monthly increase since April, and the gasoline index, up 9.1% on the month, accounted for more than half of it.

The individual forecasts are not tightly clustered:

• Morgan Stanley: 0.19% on both headline and core, citing softer core services (health-insurance reset, shelter, hotels, airfares) and weaker used-car prices.
• Bloomberg Economics: 0.25% headline, 0.24% core. It expects owners' equivalent rent to rise about a third less than in September's spike.
• Credit Agricole: 0.29% headline, 0.26% core.
• ING: 0.3% on both.
• Cleveland Fed nowcast, updated Nov. 6: 0.24% headline, 0.21% core.

UniCredit sees a 0.3% headline and 0.2% core, with energy adding little because petrol prices were broadly unchanged.

The upside case

Not everyone is betting on cooling. ISM prices-paid components for both manufacturing and services printed at 73 in October, and S&P Global's purchasing managers' surveys showed the fastest selling-price increases since August 2022. Respondents cited tariffs, energy, freight and wages.

Kiplinger Letter staff economist David Payne forecasts headline CPI ending the year at 4% and core at 2.7%, with energy costs staying elevated while the Middle East situation remains unresolved.

UniCredit also expects base effects to push the annual rate up to 4.0% from 3.7% for headline and to 2.8% from 2.6% for core. The BLS will not publish that figure for most series, so the number exists only as an estimate.

Credit Agricole used an arbitrary October 2025 index level of 325.604 to produce a market-implied annual headline rate of about 3.56%, with its forecast roughly 2 basis points above that. That is a constructed figure, not a BLS number.

Why a tenth of a point matters

Market analysis from Mitrade puts the stakes bluntly: the gap between 0.2% and 0.3% core is the gap between December being the last hike and not being the last hike. That is one analyst's framing, not a Fed statement. But the Fed's own record shows a split committee. Governors Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack dissented on Oct. 28 in favor of another quarter-point increase.

The jobs data did not settle it. October payrolls came in at 165,000 against a consensus of 65,000, unemployment was 4.1%, and the prior month was revised up to 60,000. Futures pricing for a 25 basis point hike on Dec. 9 rose to roughly 77% from about 66% before the report, according to Mitrade. That is a market-implied probability, not a policy commitment.

The Fed's October statement said inflation "remains elevated" and that "more information" would guide its next move.

Housing base is still an estimate

Shelter carries the largest weight in the index, and its year-ago base is shaky. In October 2025 the bureau carried rents forward from April 2025, which left rent and owners' equivalent rent unchanged that month. It estimated November 2025 using the sixth root of the six-month change from May.

The bureau said the carry-forward effect resolved in April 2026, when the same housing panel was surveyed again. That same month's one-month rent change was atypical because it rested on the sixth root of a 12-month change.

That means the year-ago shelter comparison remains an estimate rather than a survey reading.

Markets going in

The S&P 500 closed at 7,376.86 on Friday after its worst week since April 2025, and the 10-year Treasury yield stood at 4.86%, according to Mitrade. A softer core print could ease worries about more tightening and support equities. A hot one could pressure rate-sensitive stocks and push yields and the dollar higher, according to FinancialJuice's market preview.

Fuel prices give a partial cushion. AAA put the national average for regular gasoline at almost $4.27 on Oct. 27, down more than 20 cents from a month earlier, though still well above a year ago.

What comes next

The Producer Price Index is due Friday, Nov. 13, with an expected annual rate of 6.6% for October, which would be its steepest in nearly four years, according to Bloomberg-survey figures cited by Analytics Insight. The November CPI is scheduled for Dec. 10, one day after the Fed's decision. Tuesday's monthly print is the only CPI reading policymakers will have in hand when they vote.