CNBC Business News Update - Market Open: Stocks Higher, Inflation Hotter, Amazon Starts Selling Cars 12/11/24

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

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 Ettinger. CNBC inflation for November came in hotter, but as expected, and not so high that a lot of investors think it's not going to prevent the Fed from cutting interest rates next week. The Dow up 84 points this morning, being led higher by shares of Boeing up 2.5%. The S&P 500 index up 31 points. And the NASDAQ is up 164 points. NVIDIA shares are in the green today, up 0.3%. The Consumer Price Index at a rate of 2.7%. That's inflation higher than the Fed's target of 2%.

November Consumer Price Index expected up 0.tenths of a percent on the headline comes in exactly as expected. Year over year up 2.7 as expected. 2.7 is the warmest since July when it was 2.9. The high water mark is 3.5 from March of this year. CNBC's Rick Santelli and inflation's going in the wrong direction for a few things. The reacceleration of food at home up zero point five percent of used cars up two percent. These numbers have been negative for a while. Now they seem to be coming back up. The peril turning around had been negative in the prior month up zero point two percent. That's CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Leisman. It's unmistakable that the last four months with core up 0.3% month over month is a trend.

And so that's an uncomfortable trend. BNY Wealth's Alicia Levine on CNBC, but she says interest rates are still too restrictive. She believes the Fed can make a rate cut next week. Apple launched its chat GPT integration with Siri today. New versions for iPhone, iPad and Mac software. Investors are hoping that as features are added, iPhone sales will go up. The company's very near becoming the first in history to hit a $4 trillion valuation. Its shares are coming off eight straight days of record highs. Weight loss drug

giant Eli Lilly will start working with one of the compounders it was fighting over making copies of its drug, Zepbound. Lilly now teaming up with Rowe to offer low-price vials of Zepbound through Lilly Direct. Mortgage rates have been moving around, but even tiny ticks down have helped push demand. Mortgage rates actually fell again last week. even tiny ticks down have helped push demand. Mortgage rates actually fell again last week. Not a huge drop, but enough to push a little surge in refinance demand. Demand from homebuyers has been gaining over the last several weeks as more inventory comes onto the market. Mortgage rates, though, did gain 10 basis points to start this week.

That's according to a separate survey from Mortgage News Daily. That erased a lot of last week's drop. CNBC's Diana Olick. The average rate today on a 30-year fixed-rate home loan, 6.7 percent, according to Mortgage News Daily. Insurance stocks have been struggling after the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealth on public outcry over the health insurance business model of denying claims to boost profits. Albertsons is suing Kroger and terminating their merger agreement one day after a judge blocked the proposed deal. According to the New York Times, the companies had said it was their way to survival against the biggest grocery seller in the U.S., which is Walmart, while critics called the idea anti-competitive and would lead to higher

prices for consumers. Amazon Autos, open for business. Amazon's selling cars now. Its first brand is Hyundai, but it's working to add more manufacturers and dealers to buy a car on Amazon. You can get a loan there, schedule a pickup, and trade in your existing vehicle on the site. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC. CNBC has the most affluent audience in television, but money itself doesn't have any meaning. It's how you make it and what you do with it that gives it purpose.