People buy fruit at a grocery store in Manhattan, New York City, December 13, 2025.
Charlie Tribalew | AFP | Getty Images
Friday’s U.S. consumer price index provided some relief to investors who had been suffering from a market decline due to concerns related to artificial intelligence. Consumer inflation rose 2.4% year-on-year in January, below December’s 2.7% and back to levels after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs globally in April 2025. Core CPI was 2.5%, the lowest level since April 2021. Economists had expected 2.5% for both numbers.
“This will be welcome news for the market and for incoming Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh,” said Phil Brancato, chief market strategist at Ozaik. “This is only one month’s worth of data, but if this trend continues, it should pave the way for lower interest rates and lower inflation.”
But US markets on Friday took only tentative steps in either direction, and may still be wondering where to go amid uncertainty about how AI will impact businesses. All major indexes ended the week in the red.
Another reassurance for investors, and indeed everyone else, are signs that tensions between the United States and Iran are cooling. Tehran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht Ravanshi told the BBC that the two countries will hold a second round of talks in Geneva on Tuesday, adding that Iran is ready to discuss sanctions relief and limits on its nuclear program to benefit both sides economically.
Meanwhile, the Japanese economy expanded by 0.1% quarter-on-quarter in the past three months of 2025, reversing the 0.6% contraction in the third quarter. However, gross domestic product (GDP) growth still fell short of the 0.4% expansion predicted by a Reuters poll of economists.
—CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Pia Singh, Lim Hui Jie and Jeff Cox contributed to this report.
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There will almost certainly be more moments like this this week, as some of the biggest names in AI will be on stage at the AI Impact Summit in India. Headliners include Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Microsoft’s Brad Smith, Mistral AI co-founder Arthur Mensch, and Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang.
— Leonie Kidd
