Replays · US CPI · 14 Jul 2026, 13:30 UK

A falling price level, and a market that cared more about Ether

After three months in which annual inflation climbed from 2.9% to 4.5%, June's report showed consumer prices falling outright. Bitcoin rose. Ether rose much more: its first hour was 7.4 times a normal hour, more than double Bitcoin's 3.4 times.

Annual CPI inflation by reference month, September 2025 to June 2026, as first published (ALFRED).

The figures

Headline prices fell 0.4% in June, after a 0.5% rise in May. In the first-print records we hold, only the reports of April and May 2020 show a fall as large. Core prices were flat on the month, and the annual core rate eased to 2.9%. The annual headline rate dropped from 4.5% to 3.9%, though still well above where it had been the previous autumn.

The numbers alone don't say why prices fell, and we don't add explanations our data can't support. What they show is a sharp break from the spring trend.

Two coins, two speeds

1 14:00 UK: Ether pulls away from Bitcoin
2 16:30 UK: Bitcoin's late push to about +3%

Bitcoin and Ether over the four hours after the release, % from the 13:30 UK price.

Both started together, up about 1% on the first candle. After about half an hour they separated. Ether kept climbing to a 4.4% gain at the hour, while Bitcoin settled at 1.6%. Later in the afternoon Bitcoin made a second move, to about 3% above the release price by 16:30 UK, but it never closed the gap on Ether.

First-hour move as a multiple of each coin's normal hour.

Measured against each coin's own normal hour, Ether's reaction ranks #6 of 109 CPI releases in our Ether data, while Bitcoin's ranks #19 of 117. Most other coins sat between the two. The exception was Bittensor whose 2.1% hour was 11 times its usual size. US stocks hardly moved: the S&P 500 ETF was flat an hour after the release.

It is worth noticing what did not happen. Neither Bitcoin nor Ether gave back the first move in the usual way. Both were still higher at four hours than at one, which is less common than a quick spike and fade after a CPI surprise.

After the day

The gains held. Bitcoin was +2.8% after a day and +5.6% after a week, and Ether +7.8%. The next report, in August, showed a much smaller 0.1% rise for July, and annual inflation eased again to 3.5%.

Sources: release time and figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (public domain), first-print values via ALFRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Crypto: Bitstamp 5-minute candles; SPY/QQQ: IEX. No consensus forecasts are shown because they are proprietary; comparisons are with the previous release. “× normal hour” compares the first-hour move with the median move in matched quiet hours. How we measure it.