WSJ What’s News - Gas Prices Fuel Higher Inflation in September

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

P.M. Edition for Oct. 14. September inflation rose to 3.7% from a year earlier . WSJ economics reporter Konrad Putzier discusses why that’s putting pressure on the Fed to raise rates at its meeting later this month. Plus, we hear from WSJ reporter Dylan Tokar on what comes next after a government investigation found examples of businesses that were debanked by some of America’s largest financial institutions. And nine years after it was first unveiled, the Tesla Roadster is finally set to make its debut tomorrow in Texas. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Inflation rose last month, putting pressure on the Fed to raise rates sooner. Plus, the results of a government investigation into a personal issue for President Trump, debanking. So this is a thorn in the bank's side that kind of keeps getting bigger and bigger, and the banks are pushing for deregulatory changes, and this is something that sort of threatens to upset all of that. And tech stock sold off today as the AI buildout just keeps getting more expensive. It's Wednesday, October 14th. I'm Alex O'SAlaf for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

Inflation picked up last month. Data out from the Labor Department today showed that consumer prices rose 3.7% from a year earlier. That's hotter than August's gain of 3.4%. And it was higher than economists expected. Journal Economics reporter Conrad Putsier is here to discuss the numbers in more detail. Conrad, what drove inflation higher last month? It's fuel above anything else, right? Gasoline prices shut up. Diesel prices are up.

Heating oil prices are up. And that has been the big driver of inflation. But beyond that, there are categories that aren't really impacted by oil at all that are also going up. And what do we know about that and what's driving that? Despite the labor market that isn't exactly super hot, people have jobs, unemployment is low, stock prices are up by a ton, so people have money, and that is still part of the inflation story. So if you look at things like recreation services, which includes like Netflix streaming subscriptions, that's become more expensive. And it's getting more expensive because consumers

are willing and able to pay more for this stuff. So you have this twin pressure. In the one hand, you have the costs of the Iran war being passed on through consumers, through higher oil prices. On the other hand, you have the fact that consumers are able to pay those higher prices, which is basically what makes inflation possible. Well, that's a perfect segue to talk about what this means for the Fed. A lot of investors were betting that the Fed would hold off on raising rates at its next meeting later this month, thanks to signals coming from Fed officials. So how is this high inflation reading changing investor assumptions?

This is not a great report for the Fed that indicated before that they were not going to raise rates in the next meeting. Now markets seem to be speculating that this will not be the case that they'll actually raise rates twice this year. And the reason being that this is just a hotter inflation report than had been expected, core inflation, which is inflation not counting food and energy, that also rose by more than people expected. And that's concerning because some economists now think that this report basically tells us that inflation is too high and that the Fed is not doing enough to bring it down and that it needs to do more.

That was WSJ economics reporter Conrad Putsier. Thank you, Conrad. Thanks for having me. Well, as inflation rises and everything gets more expensive, retirees will see more money from Social Security to help pay for it. The Social Security Administration said today that, starting in January, the average monthly check for retirees will increase by 3.6%. That equates to about $900 more on average for the year. This cost of living adjustment, or cola, comes every year, and the one for 2027 is the highest since 2023.

Concerns about rising interest rates worried investors today. All three major indexes fell, with the NASDAQ leading the losses and dropping almost 2%. Chip stocks and other tech companies like Oracle, Corweave, and AMD, were hit hard today, with stocks of the most indebted AI companies under the most pressure. Investors are worried that rising interest rates could hurt them disproportionately. However, Apple ticked higher and closed with a market cap above $5 trillion today for the first time on record. Investors also dissected a fresh round of bank earnings. Bank of America's profit disappointed, even excluding a $1.2 billion fine, and its shares tumbled almost 5%.

There's a new government report out today looking into businesses who were denied services by some of America's largest financial institutions, a practice called debanking. It's something that President Trump says banks like J.P. Morgan Chase and Capital One have been doing for a while, including to him, and his claims sparked this investigation. The report from the Office of the Controller of the Currency or the OCC is the result of an investigation over the past year. And it gets into specific examples where banks steered away from companies in politically sensitive areas. Dylan Tokar, who covers financial regulation and government investigations for the journal, joins me now with more. Dylan, what were some of the companies the OCC found had been debanked? So the OCC, you know, found that there were two primary drivers of these account closures. One was this concept of reputational risk where, you know, banking particular customers could have a reputational impact on a bank and then therefore somehow contribute to its financial stability down the line.

The other thing that they looked pretty closely at was ESG or environmental social governance policies. And they found that the banks, in many cases, decided not to bank. companies in industries such as coal mining and coal-powered plants, firearms, ammunition manufacturers, the operators are construction companies behind detention facilities, tobacco. And do we see banks choosing not to offer services to companies on one side of the political spectrum more often than another? The OCC's report is most focused on incidents. where banks allegedly discriminated or cut off the bank accounts of conservative or religious

customers, but it did identify in one instance a bank that just didn't want to bank any company that it thought was partisan on both sides of the aisle. So it did offer some examples of instances where organizations that were democratic leaning were affected by these decisions. What do the banks say about this report? They are pretty adamant that they don't discriminate on a political or a religious basis. They do acknowledge that they, in some instances, do close accounts of certain customers. And when they do that, they often point to anti-money laundering laws or the fact that examiners during past administrations would put pressure on them to steer clear from customers that pose some sort of reputational risk.

Okay, so now this report is out. What could happen as a consequence? I mean, what could regulators actually do here? Behind all of this has been a legal question, and that is what laws or what rules are banks violating when they close down these accounts. Banks do have wide discretion in who they offer their services to, just like any other company.

So the executive order that the White House came out with last year suggested that regulators might, in some instance, impose fines on banks for doing this. But we have yet to see a clearly stated legal basis for doing so. This has become a topic that the MAGA platform and Donald Trump has helped to raise the profile of. So this is a thorn in bank's side that kind of keeps getting. bigger and bigger, and the banks are pushing for deregulatory changes, and this is something that sort of threatens to upset all of that to some degree. Journal reporter Dylan Tokar, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.

Coming up, Tesla is set to debut the car that some fans have waited almost a decade for, and it could be one of its last. That story and more after the break. In the Middle East, Iran is ramping up attacks in the Strait of Hormuz to levels not seen since the start of the war. Two Emirati cargo ships have sunk in the past 24 hours, and Pakistan's National Hydrographic Office, which monitors activities in Middle Eastern waters, said this was the first incident like this in months. Two other container ships and a tanker were also attacked yesterday as they crossed the strait, and maritime security firms estimate that about two dozen ships have been

hit since the beginning of this month. Iran is expanding its targets to non-oil cargoes as the U.S. military has been successfully shepherding more Gulf oil through the strait. and oil producers have a growing ability to evade Iran's attempts to shut down roots. Turning to tech news, Netflix is cutting 6% of its staff, or about 1,000 positions, in its biggest round of layoffs since 2022. In an email to employees this morning, Netflix said that most of the cuts would be in its product, tech, legal, and human resources teams. These layoffs come as Netflix is struggling with slowing growth and customer engagement,

and it's trying a number of ways to get subscribers to spend more time on its platform. And while its rate of customer defactions is the best in the industry, its shares have still fallen more than 40% in the past year. Netflix stock today closed up 0.2%. And finally, the day some auto fanatics have been waiting for for years has arrived. Tesla's new Roadster is set to debut in Texas tomorrow. Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the Roadster back in November 2017, and since then, the company's been accepting reservations for the car. People who wanted the Roadster have paid at least, least $50,000 and sometimes much more to get on the wait list. And there's a lot of height

to live up to, as Musk has promised that the sports car could go from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than two seconds, which is faster than Formula One race cars. Tesla originally said production was supposed to start years ago. But as Journal Auto's reporter Christopher Odds told our tech news briefing podcast, that didn't happen. Tesla hasn't exactly said precisely why, But what various people who used to work there and analysts have said is they were focused on other things. For example, the development of the cyber truck. And the Roadster continually was pushed back. And remember, this was also the COVID period as well.

It was supposed to start production in 2020. And we know what a chaotic year that was. Tesla hasn't released the final price of the car, but it's likely to be its most expensive model ever. And as Chris says, it comes as the company is leaving the auto business behind. What's interesting here is that Tesla has been de-emphasizing its core auto business for a few years now, pivoting to AI and robotics as the future of the company. The new Roadster maybe represents a sort of swan song for Tesla's auto business. To hear more from Chris, listen to tomorrow's episode of Tech News Briefing. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show is

produced by Anthony Bansy with supervising producer Tali Arbell. I'm Alex Osloff for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.