CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Higher, S&P 500 Index Hits Record, Inflation Report May Give Fed Green Light To Cut Interest Rates 8/12/25

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

From Wall Street to Main Street, the latest on the markets and what it means for your money. Updated regularly on weekdays, featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business newsmakers. Anchored by CNBC's Jessica Ettinger.

I'm Jessica Eddinger. CNBC, Wall Street in the green, a rally as investors see a possible green light for the Fed to cut interest rates. Inflation came in slightly better than expected last month. We've also got a record setting day on Wall Street. The Dow up 450 points, 1%. Goldman Sachs shares leading it higher. They're up 3.3%. The S&P 500 index up 53 points, 8%. tenths of a percent. It hit a record high today. The NASDAQ, up 205 points, almost one percent. NVIDIA shares back in the red this afternoon, they're down a tenth of a percent. Companies whose shares have hit fresh all-time highs today include electronic arts, Facebook parent meta, eBay, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Parker Hannafin, and EcoLeb. Perplexity, offering to buy Google's Chrome browser. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that

AI startup perplexity is making a surprise $34.5 billion offer to buy Google's Chrome browser, even though Perplexity itself is valued at just $18 billion. Now, this unsolicited bid comes as a federal judge is weighing right now, whether to force Google to sell Chrome to loosen its grip on web search after that ruling last year that the company illegally monopolized the market. That's CNBC's McKenzie Segalos. Consumer prices rose last month, as expected, amid tariff worry. in the new Consumer Price Index report.

But the core numbers are going up. Core excludes volatile food and energy. Year over year numbers, 2.7, that's the headline. That's one-tenth cooler than we are expecting. And here's what I was looking at, 3.1% on the year-over-year core. Definitely hotter than expected. So if I look at the data on the month-over-month basis, it's exactly as expected.

If I look at the year over year, obviously we got a little bit warm on the core. CNBC's Rick Santelli. Here's more from CNBC's senior economics reporter Steve Leesman. Places where there are tariffs, there are price increases. Furniture and betting up 0.9%. Household furnishings up 0.7% after being up 1%. These are things that used to be up 1% in a year. So they are there.

But what you have, you have an offset in energy. That's been helpful. What did consumers pay more for last month? If you want to know where poor went up this month, I mean, it was some of these services, rent, for instance, owners equivalent, rental prices, higher. Airfare saw a big jump, but a rebound. I mean, that's not tariffs. It was low in the last few months.

I mentioned dental care. That was like a record monthly surge for dental care. Not sure what's going on there. Auto insurance, medical care. Could they be cause for concern for the Fed? Absolutely. That we're not seeing dissatisfaction. When you go headline 23, 24, 27.

27-27. That is not working your way back to Target. CNBC's Carl Kintanaia and Sarah Eisen. Spotify had an early heads-up on Taylor Swift's new album, which she just announced. It placed billboards in New York City's Times Square in Nashville. With a code leading to a track list, Swift is signed to Republic Records owned by Universal Music Group. The latest chain to add Dubai chocolate items to the menu is Paris Baguette, according to brand eating. The alien franchise heading to the small store. screen for the first time today alien earth premieres on hulu jessica edinger cnbc

start streaming go to cnbc.com slash plus