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<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108072174-1733432641152-gettyimages-2186442290-AFP_36ND9GA-820x461.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-564731" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108072174-1733432641152-gettyimages-2186442290-AFP_36ND9GA-820x461.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108072174-1733432641152-gettyimages-2186442290-AFP_36ND9GA-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108072174-1733432641152-gettyimages-2186442290-AFP_36ND9GA-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108072174-1733432641152-gettyimages-2186442290-AFP_36ND9GA-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108072174-1733432641152-gettyimages-2186442290-AFP_36ND9GA-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108072174-1733432641152-gettyimages-2186442290-AFP_36ND9GA.jpeg 1858w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A man shops at a Target store in Chicago on November 26, 2024. Kamil Krzaczynski | AFP | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



A key economic report coming Wednesday is expected to show that progress has stalled in bringing down the inflation rate, though not so much that the Federal Reserve won’t lower interest rates next week.



The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, is expected to show a 2.7% 12-month inflation rate for November, which would mark a 0.1 percentage point acceleration from the previous month, according to the Dow Jones consensus.



Excluding food and energy, so-called core inflation is forecast at 3.3%, or unchanged from October. Both measures are projected to show 0.3% monthly increases.



With the Fed targeting annual inflation at 2%, the report will provide more evidence that the high cost of living remains very much a fact of life for U.S. households.



“Looking at these measures, there’s nothing in there that says the inflation dragon has been slain,” said Dan North, senior economist at Allianz Trade Americas. “Inflation is still here, and it doesn’t show any convincing moves towards 2%.”



Along with the read Wednesday on consumer prices, the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday will release its producer price index, a gauge of wholesale prices that is projected to show a 0.2% monthly gain.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-halting-progress-but-more-cuts"><a></a>Halting progress, but more cuts</h2>



To be sure, inflation has moved down considerably from its CPI cycle peak around 9% in June 2022. However, the cumulative impact of price increases has been a burden to consumers, particularly those at the lower end of the wage scale. Core CPI has been drifting higher since July after showing a steady series of declines.



Still, traders in futures markets are placing huge odds that policymakers again will cut their benchmark short-term borrowing rate by a quarter of a percentage point when the Federal Open Market Committee concludes its meeting Dec. 18. Odds of a cut were near 88% on Tuesday morning, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch measure.



“When the market is locked in like where it is today, the Fed doesn’t want to make a big surprise,” North said. “So unless something has skyrocketed that we haven’t foreseen, I’m pretty sure the Fed is on a lock here.”



The CPI increase for November likely came from a few key areas, according to Goldman Sachs.



Car prices are expected to show a 2% monthly increase, while air fares are seen as 1% higher, the firm’s economists projected in a note. In addition, the nettlesome increase in auto insurance is likely to continue, rising 0.5% in November after posting a 14% increase over the past year, Goldman estimated.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>More trouble ahead</h2>



While the firm sees “further disinflation in the pipeline over the next year” from easing in the autos and housing rental categories, as well as softening in the labor markets, it also worries that President-elect Donald Trump’s planned tariffs could keep inflation elevated in 2025.



Goldman projects core CPI inflation will soften, but just to 2.7% next year, while the Fed’s target inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures price index, will move to 2.4% on the core reading from its most recent 2.8% level.



With inflation projected to run well above 2% and macro economic growth still running near 3%, this wouldn’t normally be an environment in which the Fed would be cutting. The Fed uses higher interest rates to curb demand, which theoretically would force businesses to lower prices.



Markets expect the Fed to skip the January meeting then possibly cut again in March. From there, market pricing is for only one or at most two cuts through the rest of 2025.



“Two percent to me doesn’t mean just touching 2% and bouncing along. It means hitting 2% for a continuous, foreseeable future, and none of that is evident in any of those reports,” North said. “You don’t really want to cut in that environment.”

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<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/107354835-1704471188107-gettyimages-1902360932-CZECH_CRYPTO-820x461.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-562379" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/107354835-1704471188107-gettyimages-1902360932-CZECH_CRYPTO-820x461.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/107354835-1704471188107-gettyimages-1902360932-CZECH_CRYPTO-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/107354835-1704471188107-gettyimages-1902360932-CZECH_CRYPTO-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/107354835-1704471188107-gettyimages-1902360932-CZECH_CRYPTO-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/107354835-1704471188107-gettyimages-1902360932-CZECH_CRYPTO-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/107354835-1704471188107-gettyimages-1902360932-CZECH_CRYPTO.jpeg 1858w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A neon sign indicates that Bitcoin is accepted inside the venue of the Paralelni Polis project, an organization combining art, social sciences and modern technology, in Prague, Czech Republic, on Friday, Jan. 5, 2024. Milan Jaros | Bloomberg | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



The price of bitcoin soared past the long-awaited $100,000 benchmark for the first time ever late Wednesday evening.



The flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by more than 4% at $103,544.00, according to Coin Metrics. Earlier, it rose as high as $103,844.05. Bitcoin is now up more than 140% in 2024 and 48% since the election.



The move came hours after President-elect Donald Trump announced plans to nominate Paul Atkins as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, fulfilling perhaps his most important campaign promise to the crypto industry: to replace Gary Gensler, who has become something of a villain in crypto for the agency’s regulation-by-enforcement approach to the industry under his leadership.



It’s a day of celebration for longtime bitcoin investors, who have held on for dear life, or “HODL’d” through several of the cryptocurrency’s boom and bust cycles, during which government and financial institutions remained dismissive — and even hostile — toward the asset class.



That’s largely because of the cryptocurrency’s anti-establishment roots. The original idea for Bitcoin was proposed at the height of the 2008 financial crisis: a “peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution,” its founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, wrote in the Bitcoin Whitepaper.



In recent years, however, the industry has demonstrated the value of bitcoin to much of the institutional investing world. BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco and others launched the first spot bitcoin ETFs at the beginning of this year — bitcoin’s “IPO” moment — and the growing demand for them by institutions has helped drive the price higher. In November, Rick Wurster, the incoming CEO of Charles Schwab, said the firm is preparing to enter spot crypto trading, pending regulatory changes expected in the next Trump administration.



On Wednesday, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said bitcoin is “just like gold only it’s virtual, it’s digital,” speaking at the DealBook conference. He further clarified that “people are not using it as a form of payment, or as a store of value” and that “it’s not a competitor for the dollar, it’s really a competitor for gold.”



“We’re witnessing a paradigm shift. After four years of political purgatory, bitcoin and the entire digital asset ecosystem are on the brink of entering the financial mainstream,” Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, told CNBC.



Bitcoin had been widely expected to reach the landmark $100,000 level since the U.S. presidential election. However, excited investors sent bitcoin closer to this mark much sooner than initially anticipated; it rose as high as $99,849.99 on Nov. 22. There is much hope that President-elect Trump will deliver on several pro-crypto initiatives in the year ahead – including the establishment of a national strategic bitcoin reserve or stockpile, no taxes on crypto transactions and opening up the crypto public equity markets with more IPOs.



“Over the long term, I’m bullish,” Novogratz added. “It won’t be a straight line up, and investors should always consider taking gains off the table. But, with a pro-crypto administration about to take charge in the U.S., it’ll be hard for the rest of the world not to take notice.”

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<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108070539-1733239543660-gettyimages-2187495843-AFP_36PB2LJ-1-820x461.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-561728" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108070539-1733239543660-gettyimages-2187495843-AFP_36PB2LJ-1-820x461.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108070539-1733239543660-gettyimages-2187495843-AFP_36PB2LJ-1-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108070539-1733239543660-gettyimages-2187495843-AFP_36PB2LJ-1-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108070539-1733239543660-gettyimages-2187495843-AFP_36PB2LJ-1-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108070539-1733239543660-gettyimages-2187495843-AFP_36PB2LJ-1-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/108070539-1733239543660-gettyimages-2187495843-AFP_36PB2LJ-1.jpeg 1858w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Police stand guard in front of the main gate of the National Assembly in Seoul on December 3, 2024, after South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law. South Korea President Yoon on December 3 declared emergency martial law, saying the step was necessary to protect the country from “communist forces” amid parliamentary wrangling over a budget bill.&nbsp; Jung Yeon-je | Afp | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



South Korean stocks dropped in the U.S. on Tuesday after President Yoon Suk Yeol invoked emergency powers and declared martial law, raising fear of instability in the world’s 13th largest economy.



The iShares MSCI South Korea ETF, which tracks more than 90 large and mid-sized companies in South Korea, tumbled as much as 7% to hit a 52-week low. The ETF cut losses to about 2.4% after lawmakers in the South Korean National Assembly voted to overturn Yoon’s martial law decree early Wednesday morning in Seoul.



Korea Electric Power’s American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) dropped 5%, and Korean e-commerce giant Coupang shed 6%. KT Corporation, formerly Korea Telecom, saw shares fall 3%. Posco, a South Korean steel manufacturer, declined more than 6%.



Within three hours of Yoon declaring martial law late Tuesday night, 190 out of the 300 National Assembly lawmakers gathered to overturn the emergency martial law.



The president accused opposition parties of sympathizing with North Korea and controlling parliament. Yoon did not specify how martial law — a temporary rule by military authorities in a time of emergency — would affect governance and democracy in the country.



“The Administration is in contact with the ROK government and is monitoring the situation closely,” said the White House National Security Council in a statement to NBC News.



Under the martial law declaration, all political activities and acts that “incite social disorder” are prohibited. This is the first time since 1980 a South Korean leader has issued a martial law declaration.



The Korea Exchange announced it would hold an emergency meeting “to prepare response measures” and&nbsp; later decide whether the market would open on Wednesday, according to local media reports.



The U.S. dollar jumped 1.9% against the South Korean won Tuesday.

108070539-1733239543660-gettyimages-2187495843-AFP_36PB2LJ

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How Gen Z Is Reviving U.S. Shopping Malls

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How Gen Z Is Reviving U.S. Shopping Malls

Top tech predictions for 2025

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The CPI report Wednesday is expected to show that progress on inflation has hit a wall

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Bitcoin tops $100,000 as monster 2024 rally reaches new heights

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South Korean stocks rocked in U.S. trading after martial law declared

Why middle-class wages aren’t growing

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