Friday, February 19, 2016

A Look At The Consumer Inflation Numbers

From SafeHaven:
Below is a summary of my post-CPI tweets. You can (and should!) follow me @inflation_guy or sign up for email updates to my occasional articles here. Investors with interests in this area be sure to stop byEnduring Investments. Plus...sign up to receive notice when my book is published! The title of the book isWhat's Wrong with Money?: The Biggest Bubble of All, and if you would like to be on the notification list to receive an email when the book is published, simply send an email to WWWM@enduringinvestments.com. You can also pre-order online. 
  • whoopsie daisy! core CPI +0.3%.
  • ...actually +0.29%, so not just a barely-round-up thing. Y/Y t0 2.22%. Both comfortably above consensus.
  • Next month, we drop off a +0.16% from last year so even a +0.20% print on core would push us to 2.3% in Feb.
  • Core converging with median, as expected. Look at chart. What impression will it give FOMC?
  • Core CPI
  • core services +3% from +2.9% y/y; core goods to -0.1% from -0.4%. least-negative in two years.
  • I am not sure the core goods improvement can be sustained, yet, given lagged effects of dollar. Will eventually, though.
  • dealers holding all those 30y TIPS from y'day auction feel better today.
  • Cpi breakdown shortly. Taking unusually long to parse the data. Really need to optimize my database.
  • OK! Housing 2.10% from 2.07%. Primary rents 3.71% from 3.68% and OER 3.16% from 3.14%. So housing isn't the big story.
  • Medical care: 3.0% from 2.58% y/y. As the mythbusters would say, "there's yer problem."
  • Medicinal drugs 2.21% from 1.66%; Professional svcs to 2.08% from 1.92%, Hospital 4.32% from 3.96%....
...MORE
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