E-piphany

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 by Enduring Investments or Enduring Intellectual Properties (updated sites coming soon). Plus…buy my book about money and inflation. The title of the book is What’s Wrong with Money? The Biggest Bubble of All; order from Amazon here.

• CPI day again! And this time, we are coming off not one but TWO surprisingly-high core CPI prints of 0.29% for June and July respectively.
• But before I get into today’s report, I just want to let you know that I will be on TD Ameritrade Network @TDANetwork with @OJRenick at 9:15ET today. Tune in!
• And I’m going to start the walk-up to the number with two charts that I don’t often use on CPI day. The first shows the Atlanta Fed Wage Tracker, and illustrates that far from dead, the Phillips Curve is working fine: low unemployment has produced rising wages.

• The second chart, though, is why we haven’t seen the rising wage pressure in consumer prices yet. It shows that corporate margins are enormous. Businesses can pay somewhat higher wages and accept somewhat lower (but still ample) margins and refrain from price increases.

• This won’t last forever, but it’s the reason we haven’t felt the tariffs bite yet, too. Something to keep in mind.
• As for today: last month we saw core goods inflation at +0.4% y/y, the highest since 2013. I suspect that trend will continue for a bit longer, because tariffs DO matter. It’s just that they take longer to wash through to consumer prices than we think.
• In general, last month’s rise was mostly surprising because it was fairly broad-based. Nothing really weird, although the sustainability of retracements in apparel/hospital services/lodging away from home may be questioned.
• In fact, the oddest thing about last month’s figure is that “Other Goods and Services” jumped 0.52% m/m. OGaS is a jumble of stuff so it’s unusual to see it rising at that kind of rate. It’s only 3% of CPI, though.
• Consensus today is for a somewhat soft 0.2% on core. We drop off 0.08% from last August from the y/y numbers so the y/y will almost surely jump to at least 2.3% (unless there’s something weird in August seasonals). Good luck.
• Oh my.
• Well, it’s a soft 0.3% on core, at 0.26% m/m, but that’s the third 0.3% print in a row. The fact that none of them was actually as high as 0.3% is not terribly soothing.
• y/y core goes to 2.4% (actually 2.39%), rather than the 2.3% expected. Again, oh my.
• Last 12 core CPIs.

• Subcomponents trickling in but y/y core goods up to +0.8% y/y. Maybe those tariffs are having an impact. But this seems too large to be JUST tariffs.

• Core services also rose, to 2.9% y/y. But that’s less alarming.

• A big piece of the core goods jump was in Used Cars and Trucks, +1.05% m/m and up to +2.08% y/y.
• The used cars figure isn’t out of line, though.

• Primary Rents at +0.23% (3.74% y/y from 3.84%) and OER at +0.22% (3.34% vs 3.37%) are actually slightly dampening influences from what they had been. The contribution from their y/y dropped and the overall y/y still went up more than expected.
• Between them, OER and Primary Rents are about 1/3 of CPI, so to have them decelerate and still see core rise…
• Lodging Away from Home -2.08% m/m…lightweight, but certainly not a cause of the upside surprise. But Pharmaceuticals rose 0.61% m/m, pushing y/y back to flat (chart).

• …and hospital services jumped 1.35% m/m to 2.13% y/y. So the Medical Care subindex rose 0.74% m/m, to 3.46% y/y from 2.57%. Boom.

• Biggest m/m jumps are Miscellaneous Personal Goods, Public Transportation, Footwear, Used Cars & Trucks, and Medical Care Svcs. Only the last two have much weight and we have already mentioned them.
• It is going to be VERY close as to whether Median CPI rounds up to 3.0% y/y. I have it at 0.23% m/m (right in line with core) and 2.94% y/y.

• It’s time to wonder whether this rise in inflation is “actually happening this time.” Core ex-shelter rose from 1.3% y/y to 1.7% y/y. That’s the highest since Feb 2013. To be fair, it wasn’t “actually happening that time.”

• To be honest, I’m having trouble finding disturbing outliers. And that’s what’s disturbing.
• Quick four pieces charts. Food & Energy

• Core goods. This is the scary part.

• But Core Services is also showing some buoyancy. Again, look at the core-ex-shelter chart I tweeted just a bit ago.

• Lastly, Rent of Shelter. Still not doing anything…

• Got to go to ‘makeup’ for the @TDANetwork hit (I don’t really get makeup), but last thought. Fed is expected to ease next week. I think they still will. But this sets up a REALLY INTERESTING debate at the FOMC.
• Growth is fading, and worse globally, but it’s still okay in the US. And inflation…it’s hard to not get concerned at least a little…so there’s a chance they DON’T ease. A small chance, but not negligible.
• That’s all for today! It was worth it!

My comment that the Fed might not ease got more heated reaction than I have seen in a while. Clearly, there are a lot of people who are basing their investment thesis on the Fed providing easy money. I suppose it is impolitic to point out that that is exactly one great reason the Fed should not ease, even though the market is pricing it in.

But let’s look at the Fed’s pickle (er, not sure I like that imagery but we’ll go with it). The last ease from the FOMC was positioned as a ‘risk management’ sort of ease, with the Fed wanting to get the first shot in against slowing growth. I am completely in agreement that growth is slowing, but there are plenty of people who don’t agree with that. Globally, growth looks plainly headed into (or is already in) recession territory, but US protectionism has preserved US growth relative to the rest of the world. Yes, that comes at a cost in inflation to the US consumer, but so far we’ve gotten the protection without the side effects. That might be changing.

If the Fed believes that the inflation bump is because of tariffs, and they believe that lower rates will stimulate growth (I don’t, but that’s a story for another day), then the right thing to do is to ignore the rise in prices and ease anyway. If they do ease, I suspect they will include some language about the current increase in prices being partly attributable to higher import costs due to tariffs, and so temporary. But I don’t think there’s a ton of evidence that the rise in core inflation is necessarily tied exclusively to tariffs. So let’s suppose that the Fed believes that tariffs are not causing the current rise in median inflation to about 3% and core inflation the highest since the crisis. Then, if in fact the last ease really was for risk management reasons, then what’s the argument to ease further? Risks have receded, growth looks if anything slightly better than it did at the last meeting, and inflation is higher and in something that looks disturbingly like an uptrend. And, there is the question about whether reminding the world that they are independent from the Administration is worth doing. I really don’t think this ease is a slam-dunk. The arguments in favor were always fairly weak, and the arguments against are getting stronger. Maybe they don’t want to surprise the market, but if you can’t surprise the market with both bonds and stocks near all-time highs then when can you surprise the market? And if the answer is “never,” then why even have a Federal Reserve? Just leave it to the market in the first place!

And I’d be okay with that.