CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Mixed, Markets Taking Tariffs In Stride, December Inflation Was Higher...As Expected 1/31/25

Episode Date: January 31, 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 Edinger, CNBC. Wall Street's going to wrap up January trading today. And the markets have turned mixed this afternoon. The Dow slipping into the red, down six points, being led lower by shares of Chevron, which are down 3.5% on disappointing quarterly results. The S&P 500 index is higher, up 38.5%. The Nasdaq is up 234 points this afternoon, more than 1%. Shares of NVIDIA are helping there.

They're up about a half percent this afternoon. Companies whose shares have hit fresh all-time highs today include Walmart, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase, Google Parent Alphabet, Ticketmaster Parent Live Nation, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and Spotify. The markets seem to be taking President Trump's tariff threat as of tomorrow on goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada in stride. I don't think markets have fully absorbed tariffs. And I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a freak out if there were across the board tariffs applied. I think a lot of the market is just assuming it's a negotiating tactic. We're using it to get some concessions. Both those countries are showing a propensity to want to

make concessions. And so I think the markets are figuring out it'll all be figured out by Monday morning. That's BMO's Carol Schleife on CNBC. The auto industry is bracing, though, for tariffs if they actually happen. Nearly every major automaker operating in the U.S. has at least one plant in Mexico, accounting for 70% of U.S. car sales last year. Inflation was higher in the new PCE report, personal consumption expenditures, its biggest increase month to month and year over year since last spring. But when you take out food and energy, inflation came in at an expected 2.8 percent in December. That is well above the Fed's target rate of 2 percent. The last time inflation was at 2 percent was almost exactly three years ago. And then when

you take out volatile housing prices, things look even better. Price index, ex-food, energy and housing, plus zero one compared to zero one in November. That's something that Fed Chair Powell has looked very carefully at. Ex-energy, housing and food. And that's a good number. That's a very good number. The numbers are pretty good. We don't have a flagging economy. We've got a decent economy. CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Leisman. Americans are making more money though. The same report shows income was up four-tenths of a percent in December, although spending came in higher than expected. American Airlines shares were ticking higher today after one of its regional jets crashed midair with a

military helicopter Wednesday night in Washington, D.C., killing nearly 70. They now have the black boxes. The NTSB recovered those from the American Airlines regional jet. Remember that after the collision midair was broken into three pieces that then ended up in the Potomac River. Those black boxes have been recovered. Air traffic control tower staffing deemed not normal. That simply means that instead of two separate controllers communicating, one with helicopters, one with airplanes, as is usually the case, they can be combined under one person. That's what was happening when the incident took place, but it's not deemed unsafe under FAA guidelines. CNBC's Phil LeBeau. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC.