Stock Market Today: Stocks Close Mixed Ahead of October CPI

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Stocks opened lower Monday, with investors cautious ahead of tomorrow's release of the October Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. However, the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to outperform and close higher on the day thanks to a solid showing from aerospace giant Boeing (BA).

After nabbing their second weekly win last Friday, the major benchmarks made modest moves Monday. Both the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2% to 13,767) and the S&P 500 (-0.1% to 4,411) ended marginally lower.

The Dow, on the other hand, rose 0.2% to 34,337, amid strength in blue chip stock Boeing. Shares of the aerospace giant climbed 4.0% after a Bloomberg report indicated China could lift its freeze on buying Boeing aircraft. Additionally, the company landed two big deals at this week's Dubai Air Show: a $52 billion order from long-haul carrier Emirates and the purchase of 30 787-9 Dreamliners from low-cost air carrier FlyDubai.

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Nvidia's on a nine-day win streak

Nvidia (NVDA) was another notable mover, with the mega-cap stock adding 0.6%. The chipmaker is on a nine-day win streak, with today's upside coming after the company unveiled its H200 graphics processing unit (GPU). According to Nvidia, the new GPU will offer "faster, larger memory to fuel the acceleration of generative AI [artificial intelligence] and large language models."

October CPI ahead

Still, it's Tuesday's inflation data that remains top of mind for investors. The next CPI report will be released ahead of tomorrow's open and falling gas prices will likely put downward pressure on headline inflation, says BofA Securities economist Stephen Juneau. "[W]e forecast headline CPI rose by 0.2% month-over-month, which would be a meaningful deceleration from the 0.4% print in September." The economist expects core CPI will remain unchanged at 0.3%.

Market participants are also keeping an eye on any headlines coming from Capitol Hill. The government is at risk of shutting down at midnight this Friday, November, 17, if lawmakers don't pass a spending measure.

Over the weekend, Moody's Investors Services lowered its U.S. credit rating outlook to Negative from Stable, citing "political polarization within U.S. Congress," which "raises the risk that successive governments will not be able to reach consensus on a fiscal plan to slow the decline in debt affordability."

If this sounds familiar, it should. It's one of the reasons Fitch Ratings gave when it downgraded the U.S. credit rating in August.

The good news for investors: While this could create some short-term volatility in stocks, government shutdowns historically have not had much impact on long-term returns.

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With over a decade of experience writing about the stock market, Karee Venema is the senior investing editor at Kiplinger.com. She joined the publication in April 2021 after 10 years of working as an investing writer and columnist at a local investment research firm. In her previous role, Karee focused primarily on options trading, as well as technical, fundamental and sentiment analysis.