PPI Inflation Increases, Q4 Bank Earnings Higher

Wednesday, January 14th, 2026

Pre-markets started today’s early session slightly in the red, and have slid a tad deeper upon economic reports out an hour ahead of the opening bell. Currently, the Dow is -150 points, the Nasdaq is -140 and the S&P 500 is -28. The small-cap Russell 2000 is -7 points at this hour.
 

November PPI Shows Growing Wholesale Inflation

Headline Producer Price Index (PPI) data for November — delayed due to last fall’s long federal government shutdown — looked benign to positive on first glance, especially month over month, but also revealed some higher numbers when we peek under the hood a minute. Headline PPI reached +0.2%, up from the downwardly revised +0.1% for October, and below the +0.3% consensus estimate.

Stripping out volatile food and energy prices brings us the core PPI rate month over month, which reached 0.0% in November — down from the upward revision to +0.3% the prior month. There’s nothing to holler about with an unched core PPI rate, but where we see the damage is when we strip away food, energy and trade: +0.2% for the November print, coming down from a big upward revision to +0.7% the previous month.

Year over year PPI came up last month, to +3.0% from an upwardly revised +2.8%. This is the first “3-handle” on yearly PPI since September. Core PPI year over year also reached +3.0%, 10 basis points (bps) higher than the unchanged +2.9% from October. Ex-food, energy and trade, this metric blossoms up to +3.5% — the highest we’ve seen since March of last year.

Following yesterday’s retail-oriented Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers, which were uniformly agreeable with a growing economy that doesn’t have out-of-control inflation, today’s wholesale PPI numbers throw a little cold water on that. A +3.5% read on ex-food, energy and trade year over year is not great news. Keep in mind we’re still playing catch-up, too: December PPI numbers don’t hit the tape for another couple weeks.
 

Retail Sales Increase in November

Another delayed econ report this morning, due to the government shutdown, is U.S. Retail Sales — also for November. A headline of +0.6% is more robust than the +0.4% estimated, and a bigger jump from the downwardly revised -0.1% reported the prior month. Ex-autos, this number remains strong: +0.5%, more than double the downwardly revised +0.2% from October. 

Stripping out autos and gasoline costs, Retail Sales were still +0.4% for the month, as is the core print — down from +0.6% in the prior report. These are mostly pre-holiday shopping numbers, and we see the U.S. consumer continuing to pull their weight. By most accounts, holiday shopping went swimmingly, as well, so we might expect further robust numbers on Retail Sales in the next report.
 

Q4 Bank Earnings Mostly Better than Expected

A slew of big banks have reported Q4 earnings results this morning, following JPMorgan’s numbers which kicked off earnings season yesterday morning. Citigroup C, Bank of America BAC and Wells Fargo WFC all beat bottom-lines estimates: +1.81 per share for Citi, 98 cents for BofA and $1.76 per share for Wells Fargo. 

However, while Citi benefited from putting less into troubled loans, Wells Fargo saw a revenue miss based on high-than-anticipated severance costs. Bank of America saw its Net Interest Income rise in the quarter. BofA and Citi both have only missed on their bottom lines once in the past five years. Citi shares are up on this news at this hour, BofA and Wells are both down -2% on a tough trading morning.

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