Stock Market Today: Russell 2000, Nasdaq Take Flight After Surprising Inflation, Jobless Claims Data
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This live blog is refreshed periodically throughout the day with the latest updates from the market.To find the latest Stock Market Today threads, click here.Happy Wednesday. This is TheStreet’s Stock Market Today for Dec. 17, 2025. You can follow the latest updates on the market here in our daily live blog.Update 9:32 a.m ETOpening BellThe U.S. markets are now open for the day. Unlike in recent trading days, today's opening trade is looking a lot more friendly after the rate of inflation was showed to have significantly cooled in November, producing new hopes for the rate cut narrative next year.And where there are rate cut murmurs, there are traders bidding up equities. The Russell 2000 (+1.47%) and Nasdaq (+1.3%) are up more than one percent already this morning, building on gains in the futures session. The S&P 500(+0.92%) and Dow (+0.63%) aren't looking too shabby out of the gate, either.Only helping out this morning, the tech industry is getting a small bump from Micron Technology, which is forecasting a far more aggressive adjusted profit in the coming-quarter as the still-strong AI boom reduces available supply of memory chips and other products. It's up over 14% this morning.For some added context, here's a heat map of the S&P 500. It's showing some healthy gains across sectors which have been particularly battered this week, namely tech and industrials names. Outside of equities, the 10Y Treasury is 3.9 bips lower at 4.112% after the big earnings and jobless reports today; the 20Y and 30Y are 3.1 and 2.9 bips lower at 4.752% and 4.799%.In continuous contracts for commodities, WTI Crude is 0.68% higher at $56.32, but as you can see on the heat map, many energy names are still getting hammered as the U.S. oil benchmark fell below $56 last night on President Donald Trump addressed the nation -- leading many to woe about a possible armed conflict with Venezuela during the holiday season. Natural Gas (+2.53%) is also higher today, while metals like Gold (-0.35% to $4,358.70) and Silver (-2.23% to $65.41) are lower as well.Update 8:32 a.m ETA.M. UpdateGood morning. In the last few minutes, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was released, revealing that November inflation was far more tepid than expected. Even better, Initial Jobless Claims declined, even though continuing claims ticked up.As a result, U.S. equity futures are biased to the upside this morning, giving traders high hopes for a turnaround after four consecutive days of losses in the S&P 500. Here is what is on deck today:Economic Data + EventsIn the last few minutes, the Consumer Price Index and Core CPI dropped, along with Initial and Continuing Jobless Claims. The takeaways are pretty good: both inflation measures came in lower than expected, while initial claims declined week-over-week to 224,000 (from 237,000). The only real downside as an uptick in continuing claims, which came in at nearly 1.9 million; still, analysts seemed to expect a worse readout.Although the CPI and Jobless Claims are out of the way for today, there's still a few more reports in what has shaped up to be one of the busier days for economic data this year.
The Philly Fed Business Conditions Index is another morning report of consequence which just released, telling the market a different story -- it saw a significant contraction in conditions month-over-month at 41.6 (down from 49.6).Still on deck, we'll have the Kansas Fed Composite, a few bill auctions, and some overdue data from October. Earnings Today: Accenture, Nike, CintasToday is also shaping up to be one of the last days of big earnings this year, with Accenture, Nike, Cintas, and others slated to report. Here are the earnings, per Nasdaq, expected today from firms with at least a $1 billion market cap: