U.S. CPI “Surprisingly” Rose Only 0.3% in September – Bitcoin, The Star of the Show

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Markets

What to know:

  • The U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.3% in September. A lot of people were predicting 0.4%, but hey, who needs to meet expectations, right?
  • The core CPI, which leaves out food and energy (because we all know those prices are just “random”), rose 0.2%, lower than the expected 0.3%. Shocking!
  • Bitcoin continued its high-flying act, trading at $111,600. Because of course it did.

So, in the grand tradition of “we don’t have all the data we need” (thanks, government shutdown), the Bureau of Labor Statistics managed to scrape together enough people to release this shiny CPI report. And guess what? It was actually better than expected!

CPI rose just 0.3% month-over-month in September, while the so-called “experts” were all geared up for a 0.4% rise. Oh, and let’s not forget August, which was also a 0.4% increase.

Year-over-year, CPI was up by 3.0%. Now, compare that to the forecasted 3.1% and last month’s 2.9%. We’re not breaking any records here, but at least we’re not doing worse.

As for the core CPI – the whole reason this number exists is to make us forget about how crazy food and energy prices are – it went up just 0.2%. Again, lower than the forecast of 0.3%. It’s like everyone took the day off, but the report still looked okay.

Bitcoin, in its usual unpredictable way, rose after the report. It’s now trading at a cool $111,600. I’m sure some people are genuinely surprised by this.

Meanwhile, traditional markets are doing their usual thing. U.S. stock index futures got a little bump, with the Nasdaq 100 up by almost 1%. The 10-year Treasury yield dipped by 2 basis points, and the dollar… well, it’s doing whatever it’s doing.

Traders, apparently having a crystal ball, were already betting on a 100% chance of a 25 basis point rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week. And because why not, there’s also a 90% chance of another 25 basis point cut in December. Yeah, that’s totally realistic.

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2025-10-24 15:46