Macro · CPI preview

October CPI arrives Tuesday without its usual annual inflation rate, so the monthly core figure will decide how gold, bitcoin and Fed hike odds react

By VoxTradePro Desk · Published 9 Nov 2026, 13:10 UTC+8 · 4 min read

Tuesday's US CPI will show no official annual rate. Why the monthly core number matters for gold, bitcoin and December Fed hike odds.

Tuesday's US inflation report will look different from every CPI release traders are used to: there will be no official annual inflation rate. That leaves one small monthly number, core CPI, to carry the market's whole view on whether the Federal Reserve hikes again in December. For gold and bitcoin, both already moving hard this week, that number could set the tone into the Fed's final meeting of the year.

Key takeaways

When: 10 November 2026 at 8:30 am Eastern, which is 21:30 on Tuesday in Macau, per the BLS release schedule.
What's missing: no official 12-month rate for headline or core CPI, because October 2025 prices were never collected during the 2025 shutdown (Pip Theory, citing BLS).
What's expected: headline about +0.24% to +0.3% month on month and core about +0.2%, after +0.6% and +0.3% in September (FactSet via Morningstar, Bloomberg survey).
Why it matters: CME FedWatch put December hike odds at 79% on Monday (CNBC). Core at 0.2% or 0.3% is the swing.

Why there is no annual number this time

Annual inflation compares this October with last October. The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not collect prices in October 2025 during the federal shutdown, so for the all-items and core indexes it has no base to compare against, according to Pip Theory's reading of the BLS shutdown guidance. The monthly change is unaffected, since both September and October 2026 were collected normally.

Any "annual" figure you see on Tuesday will be an estimate. The last official annual rate remains September's 3.7%.

What forecasters expect

Forecaster	Headline m/m	Core m/m
September actual (BLS)	+0.6%	+0.3%
FactSet consensus	+0.24%	+0.2%
Bloomberg survey median	+0.3%	+0.2%
Cleveland Fed nowcast (6 Nov)	+0.24%	+0.21%
RBC Economics	+0.3%	+0.3%

The headline should cool mainly because gasoline stopped surging. UBS estimates energy added about 0.39 percentage point to headline CPI in September but only about 0.04 point in October, according to Morningstar. The real debate is core: RBC argues high energy costs are spilling into goods prices, while the Cleveland Fed nowcast sees core settling near 0.2%.

Our read: translate the monthly number yourself

Without an annual rate, the quickest way to judge a monthly print is to compound it over 12 months. By our arithmetic:

Core at 0.2% a month works out to roughly 2.4% a year.
Core at 0.3% a month works out to roughly 3.7% a year.

That one-tenth gap separates "drifting back toward the Fed's 2% goal" from "stuck well above it," so watch the second decimal place.

With hike odds near 80%, a firm 0.3% core mostly confirms what is priced. A soft 0.2% or lower has more room to surprise.

How gold and bitcoin are positioned

Gold enters the week strong. Spot gold rose 1.6% to $4,129.69 on Monday after gaining about 5% last week, CNBC reported, helped by softer oil prices. A VoxTradePro snapshot showed gold near $4,124 at 13:07 Macau time. One analyst quoted by CNBC warned a hot reading could firm the dollar and "put gold back on the defensive."

Bitcoin is on the other side of the mood. It dipped to about $73,761 late Sunday, its lowest since August, as roughly $913 million of long positions were liquidated, CoinDesk reported citing CoinGlass. Our snapshot had it near $74,626 on Monday. A macro surprise can still trigger sharp moves either way.

Worked example: sizing a trade around CPI

This is a hypothetical illustration, not a recommendation. Say a trader with a $10,000 account risks 1%, or $100, per trade.

On a quiet day they might place a gold stop $15 away, allowing about 6.7 ounces of exposure ($100 ÷ $15).
Around CPI, a $15 stop can be hit by noise in seconds. Widening it to $30 keeps the same $100 risk only if exposure is halved to about 3.3 ounces.

The point is that the risk stays fixed while the size adjusts. Our position size calculator does this maths, and the paper trading simulator lets you test an event-day plan without real money.

What comes next

After CPI, traders get producer prices (PPI) on Friday, per CNBC. The Fed decides on 8–9 December, and the November CPI lands on 10 December, after that decision, according to the BLS schedule. That makes Tuesday's report the last consumer inflation read before the vote.

Bottom line

Tuesday's CPI is unusual, not mysterious. Ignore any homemade annual figure, read monthly core to two decimals, and remember that a soft print likely carries more surprise than a firm one. For gold and bitcoin, how the dollar and Fed odds respond in the first hour may matter more than the headline itself.

Sources

Not financial advice. This article is for general information and education only. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any asset. Prices move quickly and figures quoted may already be out of date; markets involve risk, including the loss of capital. See our disclaimer.

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