Stock Futures Tonight: Little Changed After the Rally — Everything Waits on Tuesday's 8:30 A.M. CPI

Monday's rally was emphatic — the S&P 500 up 2.35%, the Nasdaq Composite up 2.74%, the Dow up more than 2% — and Monday night's futures session was its opposite. S&P 500 futures were marginally higher in the evening reads, up seven-hundredths of a percent at one 5:52 p.m. Central snapshot; Nasdaq-100 futures added a tenth or so; Dow futures were little changed. The only decisive overnight move came in gold, up 0.83% at $4,148.60 — the classic posture of a market hedging the morning.

The morning in question is the October consumer price index, due from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. The consensus read by this desk expects headline prices up 0.3% for the month and core prices — food and energy stripped out — up 0.2%, a step down from September's pace. It is the last inflation print before the Federal Reserve's December meeting, where futures markets have been pricing a further rate increase as the likely outcome; a soft number is the one release that could argue them out of it.

Tuesday's report also carries a hole where its headline usually sits. Because October 2025's data were largely never collected during last year's federal government shutdown, the BLS will not publish year-over-year changes for most series — the annual inflation rate, the number that leads every broadcast, simply does not exist this month. Traders will trade the monthly figures and the core, and argue about the rest.

For New York, the setup is simple. The city's biggest industry spent Monday recovering a bruising week in a single session, and spent Monday night declining to bet on whether it holds. At 8:30 a.m., the argument ends and the number speaks.