Live Markets: U.S. inflation is stickier than July’s mild CPI reading suggests

U.S. July producer price inflation (PPI) is due at 12:30 UTC. Consensus estimates put headline PPI at 0.2% monthly and 4.9% annually, versus -0.3% and 5.5% previously. Core PPI is forecast at 0.3% monthly and 4.2% yearly.

Wednesday’s in-line CPI report, combined with last week’s weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs data, raised the probability of a Federal Reserve interest-rate pause to 63%, making today’s producer inflation figures the next key market catalyst.

CoinDesk parent company Bullish (BLSH) is set to report Q2 earnings later on Thursday. Analysts expect revenue of $88.44 million and EPS of $1.13. Shares have fallen 41.35% over the past 90 days.

Bullish’s IPO took place exactly one year ago today, and the shares now trade 80% below their all-time high, closing at $24.63 on Wednesday. They were around 1% higher in pre-market trading.

Smaller coins are having their moment while market leaders bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) continue to trade listlessly.

Tokens such as OKB, MNT and VVV have gained 6% or more over the past 24 hours, ranking among the best-performing assets in the top 100 by market capitalization.

These gains, however, are not due to funds rotating out of the majors. That’s clear from bitcoin’s dominance rate, which remains steady at around 59%, a level it has held since July.

The dominance rate measures a cryptocurrency’s share in the total market value.

Underlying economic pressures in the U.S. remain stickier than the consumer price index figure released Wednesday implies, according to macroeconomic writer Mike “Mish” Shedlock.

The CPI report showed inflation slowed in July amid a short retreat in energy prices.

In a blog post Wednesday, Shedlock noted that temporary drops in energy and gasoline prices make the headline figure look small. However, underneath, inflation remained sticky and food prices are undercounted by Bureau of Labor Statistics methods. He also argued that the index ignores key housing costs such as property taxes, insurance and home prices.

This could be why the marginal month‑on‑month increase and the year‑on‑year decline in CPI did not translate into a material softening of the Dollar Index, and therefore offered little support for bitcoin (BTC).