We've republished last week's CPI report to include this morning's astonishingly good PPI data. See pages 11 and 12 -- a cascade of disinflationary progress marching monotonically through the stages of production.
US CPI/PPI
US CPI/PPI
Thursday, October 13, 2022
Owners' equivalent rent, the laggiest (and largest) component, kept core elevated again. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, without OER, core CPI year-on-year peaked in February. Do you feel better now?
US CPI/PPI
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
The collapse in gasoline prices wasn't enough. Everything else ganged up to prevent a second-in-a-row month of headline deflation.
US CPI/PPI
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
We're going to take the win. No one else said headline CPI would be negative for July. And our monetarist model gets its fourth-in-a-row sequential downtick in YOY core. Now... will Powell take the win? All he has to do is claim credit and move along.
By the way, on page 7 we have new details panels on the demographics of inflation expectations. The only people expecting hot inflation are poor, non-college educated, innumerate and from the South. We're in Dallas, so we can say that.
US CPI/PPI
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
CPI and Core disappointed already inflamed expectations. But nevertheless our monetarist model was right: this is now the third sequential month of decline in YOY Core. We know it doesn't feel this way, and the Fed is probably not smart enough to take it this way, but we have indeed seen peak inflation.
US CPI/PPI
Friday, June 10, 2022
We wanted to see the third sequential drop in CPI -- but we didn't get it (but we did get one in core). In the wake of the Ukraine invasion, food has emerged as a new culprit. The good news: deflation in clocks, lamps and decorator items.
US CPI/PPI
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
A disappointment -- month-over-month CPI was 1/3 of last month's, while consensus was for 1/6. But not the usual narrative. Gas prices fell! The worst villain was (you won't guess) health insurance. Now the Fed will have to crank up rates to make insurance costs come down.
US CPI/PPI
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Energy explains 71% of March's inflation, and way more than all the deviation from the Fed's target. Say it along with us: "TRANSITORY."
US CPI/PPI
Thursday, March 10, 2022
Gasoline explains 26 bp of the 80 bp of inflation in February. No surprise, and it will be worse in March.
US CPI/PPI
Thursday, February 10, 2022
The headline number was hotter than we, or the consensus, expected. But as expected, rising owners' equivalent rent added over 1% at an annual rate in January.