Seeking Alpha’s roundup of statements, announcements, and remarks that could impact markets, sectors, and individual stocks.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics said it won’t be releasing the Consumer Price Index for October because it was unable to collect pertinent data during the government shutdown.
The BLS said it plans to release the CPI for November on Dec. 18, but the news release and database update will not include certain month-over-month percentage changes.
“With the November release, BLS will also finalize fourth quarter 2024 Chained CPI-U data series values and update 2025 first quarter through third quarter values. BLS has not yet determined a publication date for special research series, such as the CPI for new tenant rent and CPI for all tenant regressed rent,” the BLS said in a post on its website.
- New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said he sees the Fed possibly lowering rates in the near term.
“I view monetary policy as being modestly restrictive, although somewhat less so than before our recent actions,” Williams said in a speech on Friday, according to CNBC. “Therefore, I still see room for a further adjustment in the near term to the target range for the federal funds rate to move the stance of policy closer to the range of neutral, thereby maintaining the balance between the achievement of our two goals.”
- Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said that America needs access to Chinese markets to maintain its position as a world leader in AI.
“It is clear that we really need America to go back into the Chinese market to be able to compete there,” Huang told Fox Business in an interview late Thursday. “It’s good for the American people. It’s good for the American tech stack. It’s also good that [we’re] able to compete in China so that we could also win around the world.”
Huang noted that sales of Nvidia chips to China will be nonexistent for the next two quarters due to U.S. export restrictions.
“I’m forecasting China’s sales to be zero. It’s zero for the next quarter, zero for the quarter after that,” Huang said.
Huang added that the market opportunity for AI chips in China is around $50 billion and could expand to as much as $200 billion by 2030, according to Fox Business.