#美国10月CPI全面超预期 CPI Blows Past Expectations, Rate-Cut Dreams Shattered, Market Officially Enters a Rate-Hiking Cycle

Last night’s US October CPI was like a bucket of cold water, dousing the small rebound flame that had just begun to flicker in the market.
The data itself wasn’t outrageous: CPI rose 0.4% month over month, and core CPI rose 0.3%, both 0.1 percentage point above expectations. But that 0.1 sent the probability of a 25-basis-point rate hike in December on the CME FedWatch Tool from over 70% a week ago straight to 95.6%. Even more alarming to the market, bets on a 50-basis-point hike jumped from 1.1% to 13.6%.
Federal Reserve Governor Waller put it bluntly: if core CPI is 0.3% or higher for three consecutive months, that would indicate inflation is moving away from target and more aggressive policy action is needed.
Gold plunged that night, with spot gold briefly dropping to $4025, down nearly 3%. What about US tech stocks? The Nasdaq fell less than 1% that night, which, amid the sharp volatility of the past two weeks, could even be called “moderate.” But behind this “moderation” lies an even deeper repricing.

How Was the Rate-Cut Script Torn Apart by the Fires of War in the Middle East?

Looking at the timeline, the Fed’s actions this cycle have been an extremely painful “back-and-forth.”
In March 2022, it began hiking rates, delivering four consecutive aggressive 75-basis-point hikes and pushing rates to a peak of 5.25%-5.50%. Then it hit pause.
From the second half of 2024 to the end of 2025, inflation seemed tamed, and the Fed began a rate-cutting cycle, bringing rates all the way back down to 3.50%-3.75%. The script seemed perfect: inflation eased, the economy achieved a soft landing, rate cuts began, and everyone was happy.
But the script was torn apart by missiles in the Middle East. The outbreak of war in Iran directly choked off the global energy supply. Soaring oil prices not only shattered the fantasy of “falling energy prices” but also sent high transportation and manufacturing costs spreading through supply chains into the services sector. High oil prices became the most stubborn support for inflation.
That is why, in September 2026, the Fed was forced to unanimously approve a 25-basis-point rate hike, its first since July 2023; in October, it paused hawkishly. Now that November’s CPI is out, the last door to a December hike has been kicked open.
Inflation isn’t dead, and the Fed simply doesn’t dare to relent.

Rate Hikes Don’t Play the Same Hand Against Every Asset!

There is only one key variable behind last night’s divergence across asset classes: real interest rates. Gold is a non-yielding asset, and its pricing anchor is real interest rates. High oil prices drive up inflation expectations, directly pushing Treasury yields higher. Last night, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.94%, and the 2-year yield rose to 4.69%. The opportunity cost of holding gold rose sharply, and investors voted with their feet, making gold a clear target for selling.
But why did US tech stocks look “immune” to rate hikes last night? Are tech stocks no longer afraid of high interest rates?
Not at all. In the stock valuation formula, a rising discount rate inevitably compresses valuations, especially in the AI and semiconductor sectors, which depend on future cash flows. Tech stocks’ losses were limited last night not because their fundamentals were especially strong, but because an even sharper sword hangs over them: “stagflation and returns.” Rate hikes and CPI are at most “superficial wounds” for tech stocks. What they truly fear is the double blow of the macroeconomic stagflation shadow cast by high oil prices and expectations for returns on AI capital expenditures. Over the past two weeks, the Nasdaq 100 has undergone a sharp correction, falling more than 10% from its October high.
The market is openly questioning whether the revenue growth from AI applications can cover the hundreds of billions of dollars tech giants spend each year building data centers and buying GPUs. More importantly, investors’ patience is running out. As rate-cut expectations are completely shattered and money gets more and more expensive, investors have very little tolerance for “selling dreams.” If the next earnings reports from AI giants show weaker-than-expected free cash flow, or growth in demand for computing power slows, and uncertainty from the Democrats over data center construction adds to the pressure, the result will be merciless selling.

The Market Ahead
Last night’s CPI essentially told the market that amid war in the Middle East, oil prices remain high, inflation has not disappeared, and the Fed has no room to change course. The “comfortable script” of rate cuts is not coming back anytime soon.
While US tech stocks may seem “immune” to this rate hike, they are actually walking a tightrope. What they are undergoing is a deeper repricing than rate hikes: shifting from “paying for dreams” back to “paying for profits.” For investors, what really matters is not the fluctuating rate-hike probability on CME, but how long high oil prices can hold up and when the debt problems of those AI giants can enter a virtuous feedback loop.