The bottom line

■ The Consumer Price Index rate ticked up slightly to 3.4 percent in December, reviving some market jitters over inflation. However, removing the volatile food and energy categories, “core” inflation fell to an annual rate of 3.9 percent from 4 percent the month prior.

Yahoo Finance

■ Just 6 out of 158 U.S. CEOs said they’ll prioritize bringing workers back to the office fulltime in 2024, according to a new survey from The Conference Board. About 20 to 25 percent of workers in the U.S. work from home at least part of the week.

Axios

■ Apple sold more smartphones than Samsung last year for the first time since 2011. The iPhone manufacturer last year was the only major handset maker to post annual unit growth, according to research group IDC, with 2023 shipments rising 3.7 percent to 234.6 million to edge ahead of Samsung’s 226.6 million.

Financial Times

■ Bring a Trailer, the popular online auction site for collectible cars, sold more than 30,000 cars in 2023, up 19 percent from 2022, with the number of active bidders topping 520,000. Its most expensive sale was a 2014 Pagani Huayra for $2.9 million, but the average sale price was $54,000.

CNBC.com

■ The Mortgage Bankers Association said mortgage applications rose 10.4 percent last week compared with the week earlier as interest rates on most home loans fell below 7 percent. Much of the application demand was for refinancing an existing mortgage.

CNBC.com

■ A giant bluefin tuna sold at Tokyo’s biggest fish market for $788,440, the fourth-highest price since records started in 1999. The tuna weighed 525 pounds and was bought by the owner of the Michelin-starred sushi restaurant Onodera.

Bloomberg