Thanks for joining us. Here are five key takeaways from the US consumer price index report for September, released Thursday:

• Both the headline and the core CPI, which excludes food and energy, came in 0.1 percentage point higher than forecast for the month, with a 0.2% increase in the headline index and a 0.3% rise for the core. Food prices helped propel the headline figure, which came in hot even as gasoline and energy costs more broadly declined. The core figure was driven by services costs.
• Car insurance, medical care, clothing and airfares climbed in September, and there were record increases in a few specific categories: college textbooks, sports tickets, and jewelry and watches. Housing costs, long the biggest component of inflation, also rose, although a key gauge of imputed costs for homeowners slowed for the month.
• On an annual basis, the headline index rose 2.4% in September, slightly less than 2.5% the month before, while the core figure accelerated for the first time in one and a half years, to 3.3% from 3.2%.
• Weekly jobless claims also came out Thursday, and showed a much-bigger-than-expected increase of 258,000, against the median forecast for 230,000. While this was likely affected by the impact of hurricanes, one market participant said the jump – to the highest level in more than a year – was hard to ignore.
• Stock futures dropped, while Treasuries rose and the dollar was little changed. Two-year Treasury yields were down about 5 basis points, at 3.97%, as of 9:16 a.m. in New York, while interest-rate futures showed increased confidence in a 25 basis-point Fed rate cut next month, with some traders possibly swayed by the weak jobless claims number. Contracts on the S&P 500 were down 0.3%.