August CPI Report: Friday, September 11 at 8:30am ET, Five Days Before the Fed Decides

TL;DR

• August CPI landed Friday, September 11 at 8:30am ET: +0.4% headline (3.4% year over year) and +0.3% core (2.4% year over year), per the BLS. Headline matched consensus exactly; core ran a tenth hot.
• It was the last inflation print before the September 15-16 Fed meeting, and the hotter core pushed hike odds to roughly 85-86%, up from about 72-73% the day before on PPI, the highest read since this runway started tracking in July.
• The bar it inherited: July printed 3.4% headline and 2.5% core, every number dead on consensus. August repeated the flat headline but beat on core, which is what actually moved the vote.
• August PPI arrived the day before hot on the year (5.4% against roughly 5.3% expected), so the market walked into Friday already leaning hawkish; CPI confirmed rather than reversed it.
• Stocks closed higher on the day: S&P 500 +0.86% to 7,656.98, Nasdaq +0.96% to 26,333.04, snapping a four-session losing streak as oil cooled.

When Is the Next CPI Report?

The August report landed Friday, September 11 at 8:30am ET. The next one covers September prices and arrives Wednesday, October 14 at 8:30am ET, per the BLS schedule. The dates for every scheduled print, with the time in London and UTC, are on the CPI release page; what the S&P 500 did on the last two years of CPI mornings is on the economic calendar.

The Fed's September decision comes the following Wednesday, so this was the final inflation reading the committee sees before it votes. Nothing else of consequence sits between the two: the release calendar is empty from Friday morning to Wednesday afternoon.

The Bar: A July That Settled Nothing, and an August That Confirmed Rather Than Reversed

July CPICPI (the Consumer Price Index) is the US government’s main monthly inflation measure: what a basket of everyday goods and services costs compared with a month and a year ago. It lands mid-month and is the inflation number headlines quote. came in at +0.1% on the month and 3.4% on the year, with coreCore inflation strips food and energy out of CPI or PCE, because those prices swing with the weather and the oil market rather than the economy. The Fed watches core as the cleaner read on underlying price pressure, even though people still pay for food and fuel. at +0.2% and 2.5%. All four numbers matched consensus, and hike pricing barely moved on the day. Underneath, energy fell 1.5% in July but remains up 14.7% over twelve months, the residue of the spring oil shock, while shelter's slow cooling did most of core's work.

August repeated the flat 3.4% headline, on consensus, but core ran a tenth hot at 0.3%. That is not the re-acceleration toward 3.6% this page flagged as the clean hawkish trigger, and it is not the sub-3.4% print that would have buried the hike either. What decided it was sequencing: a hot PPI landed the day before and had already pushed odds to 70-73%, so a core beat on top of that read as confirmation rather than a coin flip. The committee that produced three dissents in favour of a hike at its last meeting now has a stacked hawkish case: PPI hot on the year, CPI core hot on the month, and the September 16 vote is no longer close.

The Board

The last inflation print before the Fed votes, with nothing on the calendar between them.

What Lands Around It

The September run-in is dense, and each entry reprices the same decision:

• Friday, September 4: the August jobs report at 8:30am ET. Landed at plus 162,000, more than double every consensus estimate, with July revised from negative to positive.
• Thursday, September 10: August PPIPPI (the Producer Price Index) measures the prices businesses receive for what they sell, before goods reach the shop. It lands within a day or two of CPI and is read as an early signal of where consumer prices are heading. at 8:30am ET. Ran hot on the year, 5.4% against roughly 5.3% expected, and pushed hike odds to 70-73% on its own.
• Friday, September 11: August CPI, this page. Headline held at 3.4%, core beat by a tenth, and odds jumped again to 85-86%.
• Wednesday, September 16: the Fed decision at 2:00pm ET, with a new dot plot attached.

All four remaining events landed hawkish or neutral, none reversed the trend, and the vote that was a coin flip at Jackson Hole is now close to a formality.

The One-Line Read

August CPI held the headline at 3.4% but beat on core by a tenth, and stacked on a hot PPI the day before, that was enough to push September hike odds to roughly 85-86%, the highest read of the runway.