November inflation report will be the first released since the government shutdown

Wall Street is awaiting Thursday’s release of the November Consumer Price Index report, which will be the first reading for the period since the record U.S. government shutdown ended last month.

The report, which tracks average changes in the prices people pay for a variety of goods and services, expects 12-month inflation to be 3.1%, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones. Core CPI excluding food and energy is expected to grow at 3.0% annually.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the release “does not include percentage changes for the month of November 2025, which is missing data for October 2025,” because the bureau stopped reporting October inflation in late November, weeks before the Federal Reserve’s last meeting of the year. CPI data for September (the latest CPI report to be published and the only economic data released during the shutdown) showed an annualized rate of 3.0% for the main index and key indicators.

“The psychological distinction between two-handle and three-handle is going to be the most important,” Jose Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, said in an interview with CNBC.

Consensus forecasts point to the annualized rate reaching the 3% threshold for the month, but the senior economist expects the headline and core readings to each come in at a lower-than-expected 2.9%, but believes the range of expected results for the headline could be between this number and 3.1%.

If the report shows a 2.9% figure, it could provide some positive momentum for the stock heading into 2026. In fact, Torres believes such numbers will pave the way for the so-called Santa Claus Rally. He also thinks it will affect the outlook for interest rates next year, or how long the Fed expects to cut rates once.

“If we can keep inflation at 2%, rather than rising to 3%, that would actually strengthen expectations for monetary policy easing in the last CPI report in 2025, as that would allow for further rate cuts next year,” Torres added.

This announcement could help pave the way for a year-end bull run, but others like Crossmark Global Investments’ Victoria Fernandes don’t think a 0.1 percentage point move in either direction will lead to a “major” market reaction, so other catalysts would have to be in place for that to happen. He also believes that even if the 2.9% number were reached, Fed policymakers would still be in wait-and-see mode.

“I think it’s going to fluctuate. It’s not going to be a clear CPI number,” said the company’s chief market strategist, citing the lack of month-over-month data as one factor and another factor being when exactly the BLS can start collecting November data.

President Donald Trump officially signed the funding bill on November 12, reopening the government after a 43-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history. In response, the BLS postponed the November CPI report from its originally scheduled release date of December 10th.

“By the time the government actually opened up and started collecting data, we were almost halfway through November, so we only have the second half of the month,” Fernandez said. “You have to start thinking, ‘Is there some kind of bias in terms of how prices move and how things move in the first half of the month versus the second half of the month?'”

Ultimately, the strategist thinks the overall theme will be that inflation “remains high” and has not rebounded toward 2% as some are predicting.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty about where we go from here because there are conflicting stories,” Fernandez said. “Unemployment rates are trending weak, household incomes are weak, and consumer spending is likely to be weak. Even then, we can expect 14% profit growth and strong earnings next year. Not all the pieces of the puzzle will fit perfectly.”

“We need more information before we can really say what will happen in the long term,” she continued.