US Stocks End Tuesday on a Low, Inflation Surges Slightly, What’s for Crypto?

• Dow and S&P 500 plunged by 08% and 0.2%, respectively.
• US inflation surged to 2.71% for December 2025.
• The crypto market has defied a decline in US stocks.

Tuesday ended with US stocks plummeting to a low with inflation numbers coming out slightly higher than the previous month. Hopes for the rate cut by the Federal Reserve have dashed. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrencies have demonstrated market defying movements on the price chart.

US Stocks on Tuesday-End

US stocks and multiple indexes fell as Tuesday concluded. Dow and S&P 500 plunged by 08% and 0.2%, respectively. Nasdaq also fell by 0.1%. What added concern to this decline was a fall in the share values of Visa and Mastercard by 4.5% and 3.8%, applicable in the same order.

A report by Reuters quoted JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon saying that Trump’s recent proposal to cap credit card rates could hurt financial companies more. US President Donald Trump recently proposed capping credit card rates at 10%, down from 20-30%, in a bid to make borrowing more affordable.

Notably, shares of JPMorgan also declined by 4.2% on the sidelines. The financial sector, overall, fell by 1.8%.

US Inflation Data

Data for US inflation in December 2025 is finally out. It shows a slightly higher rate of 2.71% as of December 31, 2025. This is up from 2.68% as of November 30, 2025. Chances for no rate cut were last seen to be around 94.5%. Experts now say that any hope whatsoever of a rate cut has been dashed with the recent inflation data.

November 2025 was the first time since April 2025 that inflation dropped. It has been rising constantly since then, except for October 2025, when data was not rolled out because of the Government shutdown. Nevertheless, December’s inflation reportedly remains lower than the long-term average of 3.27%.

What Happens to the Crypto Market?

Lowering lending rates by slashing them essentially strengthens investors’ capacity to borrow. Thereby, boosting liquidity in volatile sectors like crypto. However, the market is defying the trend as of now.

Two top tokens, BTC and ETH, have surged by 3.29% and 6.40% over the last 24 hours, respectively. They are now trading at $94,757.63 and $3,323.80, applicable in the same order. The global market cap has soared by 4.61% to $3.25 trillion, with the FGI rating shifting to 52 points when the article is being written.

XRP, BNB, and SOL are a few more gainers with an upswing of 4.04%, 3.33%, and 3.01% during the same time frame, respectively.

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