US CPI / Core CPI (m/m)
Mid-month, around the 10th-15th · 08:30 ET
Consumer inflation for the prior month; core strips food and energy. Since the 2021-2023 inflation cycle it has rivaled NFP as the month's biggest print, because it is the most direct input into rate expectations.
A 0.1pp surprise on core is enough to repriced the whole cutting path, which is why indices and gold often move more than FX. Like NFP, the release is traded by machines first — the human-tradeable move is the follow-through once the dust settles.
What it measures
Change in the price of the average US consumer basket for the prior month, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Headline includes everything; core strips food and energy to expose the trend the Fed can actually influence.
- Core CPI m/m — THE number; 0.2% vs 0.3% is a different monetary policy
- Headline y/y — what the public and politicians quote
- Shelter and core services ex-housing — the sticky components the Fed cites when explaining why it isn't cutting yet
Why the economy cares
Inflation is the other half of the Fed's mandate and, since 2021, usually the binding one. CPI lands mid-month before PCE, so it sets the market's inflation expectation for the whole cycle — by PCE day the surprise is mostly priced.
How it maps onto the chart
Hot core → higher-for-longer repricing → USD up, indices down, gold down. Soft core → risk-on across the board. Indices frequently move MORE than FX here because equity valuations discount the whole rate path, not just the next meeting.
Price behavior around the release
Before
Same compression pattern as NFP: pre-release sessions consolidate and stack liquidity on both sides. Equity futures often lead positioning the day before as funds de-risk into the print.
During
Machine-first release with the classic both-sides sweep risk. Our measurement puts the post-CPI hour at ~1.2x an ordinary 8:30 hour on EURUSD — real but smaller than its reputation, partly because the shared 8:30 slot inflates the baseline; index moves run larger.
After
CPI trends have follow-through: a clean surprise repriced rate expectations for weeks, so the post-release direction often extends across the next sessions rather than mean-reverting the same day.
Who lets you trade it
News-trading policy of every firm in our verified catalog, read off the firm's own pages. Details and per-program exceptions live in the firm's rules.
| Firm | Policy | Window | If violated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha Capital | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Apex Trader Funding | Allowed | — | — |
| AquaFunded | Allowed | ±5 min | Profit share reduced |
| Atlas Funded | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Blue Guardian | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| BrightFunded | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| Bulenox | Allowed | — | None |
| E8 Markets | Allowed | — | — |
| Earn2Trade | Allowed | — | None |
| FTMO | Restricted (funded) | ±2 min | Account breach |
| Funded Trading Plus | Allowed | — | None |
| FundedNext | Allowed | ±5 min | Profit share reduced |
| FundingPips | Restricted (funded) | ±5 min | Profit removed |
| FXIFY | Allowed | — | — |
| Lucid Trading | Allowed | — | — |
| MyFundedFutures | Restricted (funded) | ±2 min | — |
| Take Profit Trader | Restricted (funded) | — | — |
| The5ers | Allowed | — | — |
| Topstep | Allowed | — | — |
| Tradeify | Allowed | — | — |
Policies verified 2026-08-22 and re-checked weekly. Restricted usually applies to funded accounts only — evaluations are commonly exempt; open the firm's rules for the exact split.