For investors, the coming week will be filled with the Fed’s latest interest rate decision, corporate earnings results and a critical meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Stocks closed the week at record highs as the delayed release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report showed inflation pressures were easing in September and put the Fed on track to cut interest rates next Wednesday.
The CPI for September, which was initially planned to be announced on October 15 if the government was not shut down, was announced as 3% for September. That’s a tenth of a percent lower than expected but slightly higher than August’s 2.9% rate.
On a “core” basis, excluding volatile food and energy prices, the Fed’s preferred measure, inflation also rose 3% in September, down from 3.1% the previous month. Core inflation increased by 0.2 percent on a monthly basis, after rising 0.3 percent in the previous two months.
In addition to the Fed’s interest rate decision, next week investors will be presented with important data on consumer confidence from the Conference Board, which will be released on Tuesday.
The corporate earnings calendar will be the busiest this earnings season, with Big Tech leaders Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOG), and Meta (META) set to report quarterly results. Investors will be watching to see whether Big Tech lives up to the high expectations that have accompanied the AI boom.
Four of the five global energy giants — Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), British major Shell PLC (SHEL) and French major TotalEnergies SE (TTE) — are also due to report this week, along with UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Verizon (VZ), Southern Company (SO) and various other industry leaders.
Trump’s meeting with Xi is expected to take place during the APEC Summit in South Korea on Thursday.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks at a news conference after the Federal Open Market Committee’s two-day meeting at the Federal Reserve on September 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) ·Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images
Even if the FOMC holds its meeting without a September jobs report, the job market will likely be top of mind for the Fed, according to Street analysts and industry Fed watchers.
Further cuts in interest rates are a given.
“Despite the absence of labor market data due to the government shutdown, this softer-than-expected CPI report should provide a boost of confidence in the Federal Reserve, which already appears leaning toward additional rate cuts in October and December,” said Bankrate analyst Stephen Kates.
Read more: How are employment, inflation and the Fed related?
Merchants right now Priced with 97.6% probability The rate cut in September will be followed by another quarter-point cut, which will reduce the target rate to 375-400 from the current 400-425.
“In the absence of a September jobs report, the October cut looks like a done deal,” Bank of America analysts wrote in a note published Friday.
The note continued as follows: “And although we still do not foresee an interest rate cut in December, we think that the Fed will turn to an interest rate cut again if no further employment announcement is made until the December meeting.”
Taking into account private data, Fed surveys and government unemployment claims, BofA analysts wrote that the job market “remains stable at best, and at worst has deteriorated slightly since the shutdown began delaying the release of the jobs report.”
Shutdown policies are also growing more closely tied to the labor market, as furloughed federal workers missed their first paycheck of the shutdown last week. The current shutdown is now the second longest on record, behind only the 35-day shutdown in 2018.
Passengers and visitors pass through Grand Central Terminal surrounded by images, photographs and projections from the ‘Dear New York’ exhibition, a multimedia tribute to the people of New York City, on October 10, 2025 in New York City, USA. REUTERS/Roselle Chen ·REUTERS/Reuters
After uncertainty about the timing and whether a meeting would take place, all three major indexes jumped last Thursday as the White House confirmed that President Trump will sit down with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a meeting on Thursday during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
In theory, the meeting offers the two world leaders a chance to strike a deal and resolve what has become an ongoing tit-for-tat trade war.
Earlier this month, China seriously limited exports of rare earth mineralsIt leaves the U.S. scrambling to create a domestic supply chain that didn’t exist until now. The meeting between Trump and Xi also follows surprise sanctions As the Trump administration seeks leverage to force Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table over the war in Ukraine, the Treasury Department is launching an offensive against Russia’s largest oil companies, state-controlled Rosneft and privately owned Lukoil.
Both of these headlines are global news, but like most things in politics, their impact is local.
Before China imposed export controls on rare earths, Beijing had almost completely halted purchases of U.S. soybeans; was crushing the American agricultural sector as farmers struggled to find markets for their products.
“Trade wars hurt everyone, and at a time when soybean farmers face an ever-growing financial crisis, these latest developments are deeply disappointing,” the American Soybean Association said in a statement. he said. expression on Thursday.
If crude oil prices remain high after posting their biggest increase in four months following Russia’s sanctions announcement, history has shown that refineries that convert crude oil into gasoline often pass those costs along to the supply chain. This suggests Americans may see prices at the pump rise again after several months of relief.
All of this leaves the Trump administration in a complicated situation. If you push too lightly, foreign adversaries may take advantage of the opportunity to act against U.S. interests; Put a lot of pressure on it, and American business owners and workers are starting to feel even more at home.
Even if talks between Trump and Xi go reasonably well this week, a “deal” may not end uncertainty in the market right now, said Thierry Wizman, global FX and interest rate strategist at Macquarie: “We are far from convinced that there will be a ‘deal’ between the US and China in the coming days that is significant enough to relieve traders of uncertainty.”
View of Russian state-controlled oil giant OAO Rosneft’s reservoirs at the Priobskoye oil field near Nefteyugansk in Western Siberia, Russia, April 5, 2006. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File) ·RELATED PRESS
Economy and earnings calendar
Economic data: Durable goods orders, September preliminary reading (expected -0.1%); Dallas Federal Reserve manufacturing activity, October (previously -8.7)
Earnings calendar: Welltower (WELL), Southern Copper Corporation (SCCO), Cadence Design Systems (CDNS), Waste Management (WM), NXP Semiconductors (NXPI), Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP), The Hartford Insurance Group (HIG)
Economic data: FHFA home price index, monthly, August (previously -0.1%); Richmond Federal Reserve manufacturing index, October (previously -17); Conference Board consumer confidence, October (94.8, previously expected 93.8); Dallas Federal Reserve service activity, October (previously -5.6)
Earnings calendar: Visa (V), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), HSBC Holdings (HSBC), NextEra Energy (NEE), Booking Holdings (BKNG), American Tower Corporation (AMT), Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL), Sherwin-Williams (SHW), Mondelez International (MDLZ), Corning (GLW), UPS (UPS), PayPal (PYPL), MSCI (MSCI), Sysco (SYY), Bloom Energy (BE)
Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ending October 24 (previously -0.3%); Wholesale stocks, on a monthly basis, September preliminary readings (-0.2% expected); Improved goods trade balance, September (-$90 billion expected, previously -$85.5 billion); Retail stocks, monthly, September (previously 0.0%); Pending home sales, month-over-month, September (previously 4%); Pending home sales, on an annual basis, September (previously 0.5%); FOMC interest rate decision
Earnings calendar: Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG), Meta (META), Caterpillar (CAT), ServiceNow (NOW), Boeing (BA), Verizon (VZ), KLA Corporation (KLAC), Banco Santander (SAN), UBS Group (UBS), Automatic Data Processing (ADP), CVS (CVS), Starbucks (SBUX), Equinix (EQIX), Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM), Fiserv (FI), American Electric Power Company (AEP), Equinor (EQNR), Chipotle (CMG), Phillips 66 (PSX), eBay (EBAY), Entergy Corporation (ETR), Carvana (CVNA), Prudential (PRU), Kraft Heinz (KHC), American Water Works Company (AWK)
Economic data: Initial unemployment claims, week ending October 25; Ongoing claims, week ending October 18; Personal consumption, third quarter (previously 2.5%); Annualized GDP, quarter-over-quarter, third quarter (expected 3%, previously 3.8%); GDP price index, third quarter (previously 2.1%); GDP PCE price index, quarterly, third quarter (previously 2.6%)
Earnings calendar: Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Eli Lilly (LLY), Mastercard (MA), Merck & Co. (MRK), Shell (SHEL), Gilead Sciences (GILD), S&P Global (SPGI), Stryker Corporation (SYK), TotalEnergies (TTE), Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), Comcast (CMCSA), Southern Company (SO), Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Roblox (RBLX), Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY), Coinbase Global (COIN), Strategy (MSTR), The Cigna Group (CI), Cloudflare (NET), Motorola (MSI), Cheniere Energy (LNG), Reddit (RDDT), The Hershey Company (HSY), Estée Lauder (EL), Restaurant Brands International (QSR), Blue Owl Capital (OWL), Fox Corporation (FOX), The Carlyle Group (CG), Zillow (Z), GoDaddy (GDDY)
Economic data: Personal income, September (expected 0.4%, previously 0.4%); Personal expenses, September (expected 0.4%, previously 0.6%); Real personal expenditures, September (previously 0.4%); PCE price index, monthly, September (previously 0.3%); PCE price index, on an annual basis, September (previously 2.7%); Core PCE price index, monthly, September (previously 0.3%, expected 0.2%); Core PCE price index, on an annual basis, September (previously 2.9%); Employment cost index, third quarter (previously 0.9%); MNI Chicago PMI, October (expected 42, previously 40.6)
Earnings calendar: Exxon Mobil (XOM), AbbVie (ABBV), Chevron (CVX), Linde (LIN), Colgate-Palmolive (CL), Canadian National Railway Corporation (CNI), Dominion Energy (D), Imperial Oil (IMO), Charter Communications (CHTR), Cenovus Energy (CVE), Cboe Global Markets (CBOE), T. Rowe Price (TROW), Piper Sandler (PIPR)
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