CNBC Daily Open: Inflation and scatter plots

This report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors the latest news wherever they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe Here.

US government shutdown suspended
US government narrowly avoided downtime after President Joe Biden signed on Saturday, a temporary draft bill on government financing. President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk thwarted the initial negotiated financing plan on Wednesday, sharply criticizing its provisions and in particular insisting on suspending the US debt limit for two years.

Slight cooling of price increases
Headline inflation in the US in November it increased by only 0.1% compared to October.according to the personal consumption expenditure price index. On a yearly basis, prices increased by 2.4%. Both readings were 10 basis points lower than expected. Core inflation was also 10 basis points lower than forecast. PCE is the US Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure.

The US and Asia-Pacific markets are growing
On Friday o S&P500 increased by 1.09%, i.e Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.18% i Nasdaq Composite increased by 1.03%. But all indexes it was out for a week. Stocks in the Asia-Pacific region rose on Monday, after a positive ending on Wall Street on Friday. Japan Nikkei 225 increased by approximately 1.2% when Honda, Nissan AND Mitsubishi apparently The launch was announced by the country's Ministry of Industry connection conversations.

CEOs see the door
Blue chip companies such as Boeing, Intel AND Starbucksannounced changes in their CEO positions this year. They are not alone. Were 327 CEO departures by November, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm for U.S. public companies. This is the highest level since the company began tracking the data in 2010.

(PRO) Bets on Broadcom
Nvidia is undeniably the king of the AI ​​chip space, and it's hard to imagine any company dethroning it in terms of market capitalization. But one portfolio manager told CNBC this Broadcom is “the next Nvidia in terms of potential over performance

Stocks sold out on Wednesday after the Fed indicated it was seeing two quarter-point interest rate cuts in the coming year, fewer than the four previously predicted. “We are moving sideways in terms of 12-month inflation,” he added. he said Fed Chairman Jerome Powell at a press conference.

However, the November PCE index turned out to be colder than expected. “This morning, sticky inflation seemed a little less entrenched,” said Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E-Trade Morgan Stanley.

The Fed stressed Again AND Again that it is “data dependent”. So would the Fed have presented the world with a slightly different scatterplot if it had had the opportunity to look at the PCE data first?

Giving little credence to this line of thinking, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee told CNBC's Steve Liesman that he hoped the November inflation reading “suggests that several months of strengthening were more of a shock than a change in path.” In other words, the economy is “still on track to get to 2%,” Goolsbee said.

And again, Powell he said in July that the central bank would be “dependent on the data, but not on the data point” in determining when to cut interest rates. Even if the November PCE index did signal a return to a downward trajectory for inflation, next month's data would not cause the dots to shift. Perhaps two more months of cooler reading could be useful?

These questions are rhetorical. Conditional questions have no answers, especially in markets. However, in their vagueness and circular nature, they highlight the fact that trying to time or play the market, especially in volatile times like these, may not be the best idea.

Instead, dig deeper into the fundamentals – earnings, cash flow, future earnings – that drive stocks even as inflation and interest rates rise and fall. Remember the days when inflation reports and Fed meetings were just another day in the markets?

— CNBC's Jesse Pound, Brian Evans and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.