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.

• The first CPI day of 2020! Although technically, this is the last print from the 20-teens.
• The next decade ought to be very different from the last decade, from an inflation perspective. No more wondering if deflation is sneaking up on us, which is how 2010 began. I suspect we will spend more time worrying about how to put the inflation genie back in the bottle.
• As the saying goes, letting the cat out of the bag is a heck of a lot easier than gettin’ him back in.
• But let’s be more myopic for now: month on month. Consensus on core CPI is for +0.18% or so, which would keep y/y at 2.3% unchanged from last month.
• To tick y/y core back to rounding to 2.4%, we only need 0.22% m/m on core CPI, so that’s more likely than the weakness we would need to see it tick down to 2.2%.
• Last month in fact we saw 0.23%, which is right on the 6-month average core print. The only reason y/y is as low as it is, is because Feb-May last year were all 0.11-0.15% prints. Which is to say that the comps get easier starting in March (with Feb’s number).
• Last month’s +0.23% came with softish housing, too. So there are some underlying upward pressures beyond housing. Medical Care has been getting the most attention so we will be attentive to any continued upward pressure there.
• Also watch this month for an apparel bounce-back. Big drop last month, most likely due to the placement of Thanksgiving and the BLS’s new methodology which has induced lots of volatility to the series.
• Downwardly, Used Cars remain a risk with private surveys showing softness there. And we’ll watch housing again. A sea change in housing would be a big deal. No real sign of that yet, and in fact housing has been running hotter than our forecasts by a tiny bit.
• That’s all for now…good luck with the number. 5 minutes.
• Weak CPI print, +0.11% on core…y/y just barely rounded up to 2.3% y/y. I said a downtick would be hard…but this was weak enough that it was very close.

• Used Cars was quite weak, at +0.76% m/m, but that’s not super-surprising. The y/y at -0.68% (from -0.44%) is roughly in line.
• Another usual suspect, Lodging Away from Home, plunged -1.75% m/m, putting the y/y to -0.28% from +3.26%. So a big, anti-seasonal move there. But LAfH is only 1% of CPI.
• Overall housing was okay…OER +0.24% and Primary Rents +0.23% m/m, meaning that they upticked slightly y/y to 3.28% (vs 3.26%) and 3.69% (vs 3.66%) respectively. So it isn’t the big components there.
• Yet Housing as a whole subgroup was only +0.10%. Was that all LAfH? Need to check.
• Medical Care accelerated further, +0.57% m/m.

• Medical care jump led by a large +1.25% m/m rise in Pharma (Medicinal Drugs).

• The increases in the broad medical care components tends to support my prior suspicions that the big rise in CPI for health care insurance was a case of BLS not catching what was actually moving, so it appeared to show up in the insurance residual. That residual is still high…

• Struggling finding anything (other than used cars and lodging away from home) that was really weak. Apparel was +0.40% m/m, so we got some of the bounceback. Recreation was a little weak, +0.15% m/m, and “Other” was -0.13% m/m…I need to dig deeper in housing though.
• Overall core goods was steady at +0.10% y/y; overall core services was steady at +3.0% y/y. So no super clues there.
• Here’s supporting chart for what I said about the weakness in Used Cars. Weak, but not surprisingly weak.

• Well, in Housing…Shelter, which includes rents but also includes Lodging Away from Home, decelerated to 3.25% from 3.32% y/y. Fuels and Utilities is -0.23% y/y vs +0.74%. And Household Furnishings/Operations +0.98% vs 1.61%.
• Looks like major appliances were heavy, down 1% m/m or so. But we’re talking a pretty small weight.
• So biggest m/m decliners (and annualized changes) were Lodging AfH (-19.1%), Public Transport (-16.3%), Car and Truck Rental (-14.7%), and Personal Care Products (-12.9%). Cumulatively that’s only 2.8% of the CPI, but big changes.
• Biggest m/m gainers aren’t in core: Motor Fuel (+39.6%) and Fuel Oil/Other Fuels (+27.4%). Medical Care Commodities (drugs) were +19.3%, and are in core, but as we have seen probably not a one-off. Then Meat, Poultry, Fish, and Eggs (can we just call this “protein?”) +16.7%.
• So we’re talking about a lot of left-tail things in core especially. Median looks to be over 0.2% again, though a little hard to say because one of the regional OERs looks like the median category. But y/y Median CPI should stay roughly steady at 2.92% is my guess.
• So core ex-shelter dropped a bit to 1.55% from 1.61% y/y. Still well off the lows. But if these left-tail one-offs are really one-offs, we would expect to see that rebound next month. Bottom line though is that 1.55% from non-housing isn’t very alarming yet.
• To kinda state the obvious, nothing here will have the slightest impact on the Fed. They’ve basically said they don’t care about inflation at these levels. “Wake me when it hits 3% on core PCE, then hit the snooze button for a year.”
• “In order to move rates up, I would want to see inflation that’s persistent and that’s significant. A significant move up in inflation that’s also persistent before raising rates to address inflation concerns: That’s my view.” – Powell, Dec 11 2019
• Let’s look at the four pieces charts in order from most-volatile to least. First, Food and Energy.

• Second, Core goods. This includes pharma, but also used cars, so right now the cars are beating drugs. (Don’t drink and drive, kids.)

• Core Services less Rent of Shelter. Now, this month overall was weak but this is starting to look more concerning thanks to Medical Care. I think we might be seeing this over 3% before long, given the signals from health care.

• And 4th piece: rent of shelter. So, flip side of the other core services is that rents might be softening..but at least aren’t showing an urgency to accelerate further. This was the reason I thought we’d see core peak in the 1st part of this year. I’m no longer confident.

• Ever feel like inflation was giving you the finger? Here is the distribution of price changes. The big one in the middle is OER. The one at the far right is gasoline. You can see there are a lot of left tail events still.

• Last one. Same data as the last chart, but this just sums all the categories over 3% y/y inflation. Obviously, when this goes over 50%, median is at least 3%. Because of rents, this is going to be close to 50%…but enough other categories are starting to scooch it there.

• Scooch being a technical term.
• OK, that’s all for today. The summary is that while the monthly number was soft, the underlying pressures are if anything getting a little firmer. Of course, the summary if you’re on the FOMC is, “CPI came out today? Really?”

As I said, nothing here will affect the Fed, at least for a while. I am sure some of them still pay attention to the CPI but they’ve made very clear that the only way inflation would affect monetary policy is if it went a lot higher, or a little bit lower. It may go a lot higher, but it won’t get there quickly. And core PCE, which is what the Fed supposedly focuses on (insider tip: they focus on whichever index is confirming their thesis), is more likely to accelerate from here since it overweights medical care – which is now trending higher – and underweights housing – which is looking soft – compared to private consumption. So, write off the Fed.

However, the “cyclical” ebbing of inflationary pressures that I had been expecting in Q1-Q2, mainly because I expected more softening in rents and I thought bond yields would be declining more in reaction to the slowdown in growth, aren’t apparent. It looks as if inflation might peak later than I had expected. Now, I never thought such a peak would mean inflation rolls over and goes to the lows of the last recession. Absent another collapse in housing, which does not appear to be in the offing, that isn’t going to happen. I thought inflation would stage a small retreat and then move to new highs when rates headed back up again. So far, though, I don’t even see much reason to think the peak is about to happen. Yes, rents are squishier than they were but it appears that medical care is moving fairly aggressively higher and interest rates don’t appear to be responding to the global slowdown in growth. So we might well be looking at a recession where inflation doesn’t slow very much.

In any event, the Fed’s response function make potential tail events a mostly one-way affair right now. They’ve warned you. Take appropriate precautions – which is relatively easy now as most inflation hedges (exception precious metals) are quite cheap!

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.

• Another CPI day dawns bright and cold. But will inflation get heated up again, with a fourth 0.3% print on core, out of five? Or stay cold like last month’s +0.13% on core?
• Last month, core goods was pressured a little bit, although still +0.7% y/y, by softness in Used Car prices and a big drop in pharma prices.
• Apparel also fell as the new methodology is adding more volatility to that series than we had previously seen.
• I suspect we will see more softness from Used Cars (maybe not as much as last month), as sales surveys have been consistently soggy recently.
• I also continue to wait for the other shoe to drop with Medical Care. The Health Insurance part, which is a residual, has been running really hot. But that probably just signals that survey prices of the other parts need to catch up with reality. At least that’s my speculation.
• Although core CPI was soft last month, Median was +0.25% and a new cycle high of 2.97% y/y. So the underlying pressures are steady and that probably means we aren’t about to see a major turn lower yet.
• Really, the major change since last month has been the Fed’s tone – Powell saying that the Fed won’t even consider addressing higher inflation until they see “a really significant move up in inflation that’s persistent.”
• That changes the calculation for investors and we have seen a meaningful move higher in breakevens recently as a result.
• Consensus for today’s number is +0.3% headline, +0.2% on core, with the y/y core staying at 2.4%. And they’re really calling for an 0.2% or above, not a ‘soft’, rounded-up, core figure.
• We are rolling off 0.196% from last October, so to have the y/y rise we need another pan-0.2% print. And to keep y/y at 2.4% on core it can’t be much softer than that.
• That’s all for now. Except for this: after the figure I will be on @TDANetwork with @OJRenick. About 9:15ET is when we are scheduled to go to air. Tune in! And good luck today.
• Soft one, +0.16% on core that rounds up to +0.2%. The y/y core dripped from 2.36% to 2.32%, which caused the rounded figure to go 2.4% to 2.3%.
• So, what happened in June-July-August? Three months is a lot for an outlier.

• OK, wow, -3.84% m/m drop in Lodging Away from Home. Looks like a seasonal distortion as the prior month was +2.09%. LAfH is only 1% of consumption, but that means it’s ~4bps of the m/m figure.
• Used Cars and Trucks rebounded to 1.32% m/m, but the y/y dropped to 1.44% from 2.61%. It may have a little further to drop but that’s not surprising.
• Apparel -1.8% m/m, so again more volatility from the new methodology. Core goods y/y dropped from +0.7% to +0.3%, but some part of that was Apparel going from -0.3% y/y to -2.3% y/y.
• In the big pieces, Primary rents were +0.14%, a little soft (y/y to 3.74% from 3.83%) and Owner’s Equivalent +0.19%, also soft, to 3.32% from 3.40% y/y. Along with Lodging Away from Home it meant the Housing subindex, 42% of CPI, decelerated to 2.89% from 3.03%.
• That’s potentially big on a couple of fronts, if it indicates actual slowing in rent inflation. As a big piece of CPI, a modest slowing there will help turn Median too.
• Belated but here’s the chart on used cars and trucks. You can see the y/y is back in line, but some more softness likely.

• So, core inflation ex-housing actually rose to 1.60% from 1.55%. Pretty minor move but it hasn’t been higher since Feb 2016, with the exception of two months ago when it hit 1.70%.

• So the spread of shelter inflation over core, non-shelter inflation, has been extreme and one question has been whether housing inflation would slow or other inflation would rise. Answer this month is: both.

• Not to belabor Lodging Away from Home but here is the y/y. The monthly volatility is not helpful, but at least it’s only 0.9% of CPI.

• Weirdly, I haven’t mentioned Medical Care. M/M, Medicinal Drugs rose 1.05% after declining -0.79% last month. Y/y rose to +1% from -0.3%. Doctors’ Services rose to 1.16% y/y from +0.93%. But Hospital Services jumped to 3.46% from 2.08% y/y.
• Hospital Services is 2.2% of consumption, and that +1.38% m/m jump is the reason that Core Services rose to 3% y/y from 2.9% DESPITE the deceleration in housing.
• y/y hospital services. So is that part of what wasn’t being captured and thus showing up in the health insurance residual? Maybe, but Health Insurance still went to +20.1% y/y from 18.8%. Even knowing that’s a residual doesn’t keep it from being scary.

• It’s measuring a REAL COST INCREASE, it’s just not really in the price of insurance policies that Americans are paying. Yes, they’re rising, but not at 20% y/y.
• Insurance chart

• Early guess on Median is that it will be a softish +0.19%, which will keep y/y basically unch.
• Biggest annualized declines this month were Lodging Away from Home, Women/Girls’ Apparel, Infants’/Toddlers’ Apparel, and Men’s/Boys Apparel. Biggest increases: Car/Truck Rental, Motor Fuel, Misc Personal Goods, Energy Services, Used Cars/Trucks, Med Care Commodities.
• Those are biggest annualized MONTHLY declines, Sorry.
• About to get ready to air on @TDANetwork, so four-pieces charts might have to wait until later.
• Summary today is that as usual there are lots of moving pieces but the interesting bit is the big housing pieces. They’re slow but there’s some anecdotal signs of softness developing and if that’s real, it could cap core inflation for now. Not sure of that yet.
• I still think inflation is likely to peak for this cycle in early 2020, but again I admonish that the downside won’t be nearly as low as we have seen downsides and the next upside will be worse than this one. Higher highs and higher lows from here.

I still owe you the four-pieces charts, so here they are. First, Food & Energy.

Next, Core Goods. It suffered a big setback today but it still looks generally uptrending. I don’t think this is about to go to 4, but something between 0.5% and 1.0% for a while is not hard to imagine especially if pharma prices stabilize.

Core services, ex rent-of-shelter. Now, this starts to look a little more interesting? Medical Care showing some perkiness and as the second-most-stable piece here, core services less rent of shelter is worth monitoring for the longer-term macro inflation picture.

Finally, Rent of Shelter. Still in the same general vicinity, but there are starting to be some anecdotal reports of softness in home prices in certain areas so it’s worth monitoring. It’s not about to plunge as in 2007-09, but it just needs to back off a little to change how concerned we are about inflation.

That said, inflation seems to be broadening a bit and also becoming more volatile. The volatility is partly because the BLS is changing the way they do certain things but it’s also a consequence of fractious trade relationships where firms are changing their sourcing, prices are responding to tariffs and tariff threats, etc. To the average consumer who encodes price increases as inflation and price decreases as good shopping, volatility in prices feels very much like inflation so if this continues then inflation expectations could rise just on the volatility (unless it’s all measurement volatility, of course).

I do think that the investment implication of today’s inflation numbers is muted compared to the implication of what the Fed has said about the inflation numbers. To wit, the Fed won’t even consider hiking to restrain inflation unless they see “a really significant move up in inflation that’s persistent.” So far we haven’t seen that, and in fact recently the upper tails have been coming down just as the fast as the lower tails have been going up. The chart below shows what proportion of the CPI is inflating faster than 4% y/y.

But from an investor’s standpoint and more importantly from an advisor’s standpoint, the Fed stance changes how you approach a portfolio if you are a professional-risk-minimizer (as most advisors are). In the old days, an uptick in inflation that caught an advisor flat-footed might be forgiven because we assumed the Fed was working hard in our direction – to keep inflation low. But now, even if you don’t think inflation is going to rise, the professional risk on the downside is bigger because clients will say to the advisor “why didn’t we have any inflation hedges? The Fed told you they wanted expectations to go higher!” Maybe this is too subtle, but breakevens are up 20-25bps over the last few weeks and I think no small part of that is because investors and advisors are now on their own with respect to inflation. In my experience, people who think they might be shot at can usually be trusted to dig their own foxholes.

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.

• Welcome to another CPI day. The tone going into this one is soooo much different than last month. We are coming off of a surprising jump in core CPI of 0.29%, rather than three straight weak numbers, for starters.
• For another, the Fed is already in easing mode; last month we were just preparing for it. Despite the high inflation print, and median CPI near its highs y/y (2.84%), the Fed eased anyway.
• (If you needed any more evidence that the Fed cares more about the stock market and “risk management” of forward growth expectations, than about inflation, that was an exhibit for you.)
• With global growth sliding, protests in Hong Kong, the Argentinian peso collapsing…this CPI number today won’t change the Fed’s trajectory. They’re going to keep easing for a while.
• I expect inflation to peak later in Q4 or in Q1, but in the meantime it may make the Fed feel a bit uncomfortable. List 4 tariffs being implemented will probably finally result in a tariff effect (not for a few months, as they take effect Sep 1).
• As for today: last month’s jump was fueled by housing, and by used (not new, not leased) cars and trucks. Most of that was catch-up although housing’s strength is a little surprising.
• I don’t expect retracements there. And there’s upside risk from medical care, especially hospital services, though it’s hard to time.
• Recent increases in the CPI for health insurance, which is a residual, may indicate coming acceleration in inflation for drugs and/or hospital services, which are due. Hard to time this though.
• Consensus on the Street is for roughly 0.19% on core CPI. That would keep y/y steady, right at 2.1%. Good luck.
• Well whoopsie. Another 0.29% on core CPI. That brings y/y core to 2.21%
• This makes the lull earlier this year look decidedly different.

• Let’s see. Lodging Away from Home jumps out, retracing a -0.64% fall last month to +0.94% this month, but that’s only 1% of CPI.
• Primary Rents and OER both were better behaved this month, +0.28% and +0.25%, but that actually lowers the y/y for both of them.
• Heh heh…did someone say hospital services? It rose 0.46% m/m, pushing the y/y to 0.77% from 0.50%. No real victory lap for me yet…it’s got a long way to go.

• Pharma was also positive, +0.29% m/m versus -0.46% m/m last. Overall, Medical Care rose to 2.57% y/y versus 1.96% last month. Medical Care is about 9% of CPI.
• Used cars and trucks accelerated to 1.47% y/y versus 1.25%. So no retracement to the bounce last month. I hadn’t expected any since the move last month looked like a return to fair.
• Apparel +0.44% m/m. That takes the y/y to -0.55% versus -1.29% last month. Couple of months ago there was a sharp fall as BLS shifted to a new methodology. Looks like this is catching up. Still mild deflation in apparel, no tariff effects.
• Overall, Core Goods was +0.40% y/y. Wait, what?? About time! HIGHEST Y/Y CORE GOODS SINCE 2013. The persistent-deflation-in-goods narrative just took a hickey.

• However, hold the victory lap on that. Model says we may be close to the highs on core goods. (But the model doesn’t know about tariffs.)

• This is rare…Other Goods and Services, the eighth of eight major subgroups in CPI, rose 0.52% m/m. That category (only 3% of CPI) is a dog’s breakfast so unusual to see a m/m jump that large. Will be worth looking into.
• Core inflation ex-shelter rose to 1.31% y/y from 1.16% last month.
• New Vehicles and Leased Cars and Trucks both decelerated further. So if anyone ‘blames’ used cars for the strong print, point out that overall “New and used motor vehicles” decelerated to 0.30% y/y from 0.43%. This kind of talk will make you popular at parties.
• CPI for health insurance continued to surge, now up 15.88% y/y. Remember, this is a residual, but I think that means it may signal changes that the BLS hasn’t picked up yet. It’s the highest on record.

• Back to that dog’s breakfast of “Other”. Nothing really stands out. This category has cigarettes, personal care products (cosmetics, etc), personal care services (haircuts, e.g.), funeral expenses, legal services, financial services, dry cleaning…pretty balanced increases.
• Biggest declines this month are jewelry and watches (-17% annualized) and infants’ and toddlers’ apparel (-12.8% annualized). Bunch of annualized >10% gains tho: Mens’ & boys’ and womens’ & girls’ apparel, public transportation, lodging away from home, tobacco, motor fuel.
• Early look at median CPI…my estimate is 0.28% m/m, which would put y/y to 2.88% and a new high.
• OK, time for the four-pieces charts. And then a wrap-up. First, Food & Energy.

• Second piece: Core goods. This is really where the story is, and where it’s likely to be going forward. A reminder here about how long the inflation process can take! Folks were looking for tariff effects the moment they went into effect. But businesses wait-and-see first.

• Now businesses have seen, and the tariffs look to be pretty sturdy, and they’re moving prices. And more to come probably.
• Core services less rent of shelter. Medical Care maybe has stopped going down, but it isn’t going up yet.

• And the stable Rent of Shelter. A little surprised it’s so buoyant still.

• Well, the wrap-up is obvious here. Second 0.3% core month in a row, and no obvious outliers. The acceleration seems to be concentrated in core goods, but fairly broad. I still think we will see inflation peak later 2019 or early 2020, but…there are no signs of it yet.
• So this is what the Fed faces: slowing global growth, political unrest, and rising inflation. In that circumstance, will they keep easing? OF COURSE THEY WILL, THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT INFLATION. Haven’t for a decade at least.
• And what about markets? 10-year inflation swaps are shown below, compared to Median CPI (last point estimated). There’s a serious disconnect here.

• So as Porky says, “That’s all, folks!” Thanks for tuning in. I’ll put the summary of these tweets up on my site mikeashton.wordpress.com within the hour.

What is amazing about inflation is both how slowly it changes and also how quickly it changes. Three months ago we were looking at four soft months in a row on core CPI and people were starting to chirp about the coming deflation. Then we get two of the highest core prints in a long time – and broad-based at that – and the story will be 180 degrees different. (Another reason to watch Median CPI rather than Core CPI is that the head fakes aren’t very good in Median – there was never much question that the broad trend was staying higher).

To be sure, the Fed doesn’t really care about inflation, and markets don’t much care either. Unless, that is, it causes the Administration to slow its march toward tariffs. As I write this, the Trump Administration has announced they will delay the tariffs on “some” products – including cell phones, laptops, video game consoles, some toys, and some apparel – until December 15th (just in time for Christmas, but it means that these goods won’t see prices higher during the holiday shopping season since everything on store shelves will have already been imported. Thanks Wal-Mart!). Stocks have taken that as a signal to rip higher because the fact that inflation is rising on 98% of the consumption basket is so one-hour-ago. Happy days are here again!

But make no mistake. The inflation pressures are not all from tariffs. In fact, few of them seem to be specifically traceable to tariffs. This is a continuation of a broad accelerating trend we have seen for several years. See above: inflation changes slowly. The Federal Reserve will ignore this because they believe the slower global growth will restrain inflation so that there is nothing they need to do about it. In some sense they are right, because the market has already lowered interest rates by so much it is likely to push money velocity lower again. I still think inflation will peak later this year or early next year, but if I were on the FOMC…I’d be somewhat nervous about that projection today.

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. 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.

• Big, big CPI day today. After four straight 0.1s (rounded down to that, in each case) on core CPI, the importance here is hard to overstate.
• With the Fed gearing up to ease, partly because of low inflation, these prints all matter more.
• (…although the Fed minutes suggested the Fed is taking a “risk management” approach, which makes the hurdle for NOT easing a lot higher since they can always say they’re addressing future risks, not current data.)
• The problem is that better measures of inflation, like Median or Trimmed Mean, are not really showing the same slowdown as core. That is, these are still one-offs, or “transitory” in Fed-speak.
• But that’s one way that inflation involves – as one-offs that become more frequent until those one-offs are the median. Still, while I expect inflation to peak later this year I don’t think that’s happening yet.
• There is an underlying mystery in all of this and that is: where is the tariff effect?! The markets have moved on from worrying about it because it hasn’t shown up yet.
• But the short-term bump from the actual tariffs was never the real threat with de-globalization. The important effects are long-term, not short term. Still, it makes investors more confident that China tariffs don’t really matter much.
• OK, just a few minutes until the number. After the number and my reactions to it, tune in to @TDANetwork where I will be talking with @OJRenick at about 9:15ET. The consensus is for 0.2% on core CPI, keeping y/y at 2.0%. Good luck out there.
• Well, that’s more like it. Core CPI +0.29%, pushing y/y from 2.00 to 2.13%.
• Breakdown in a moment but first thing it’s really important to remember: this does not mean the Fed won’t ease this month. Almost surely, they still will. Remember, this is “risk management” to them. They’ve set it up to ease anyway.
• Last 12 core CPI.

• OK, big m/m jump in Primary Rents and Owners’ Equivalent are the obvious culprits. Rents went to 3.87% y/y from 3.73% y/y on a +0.424% m/m jump. OER rose from 3.34% y/y to 3.41% y/y.
• Used Cars and Trucks also finally caught up a bit…they’d been way below where private surveys had them, but this month +1.59% m/m, vs -1.37% last month. y/y goes from +0.28% to 1.25%.
• Apparel +1.13% m/m. Y/y it’s still in deflation at -1.3%, but last month that was -3.1%. Tariff effect or just the new method adjustment starting to smooth out? I expect the new method will show more volatility, FWIW.
• You can see the main trend in apparel hasn’t really changed; this month’s bump just moves it back towards the prior flat-to-slightly-down trend.

• CPI-Used cars and trucks vs Blackbook. Had been a bit below, now spot on.

• Core ex-shelter rises to 1.16% from 1.04%. That’s still well below the highs from late last year but underscores that this is not JUST housing (although…housing is a big part of it).
• This is interesting. Hospital Services (part of Medical Care) continues to plunge. -0.1% m/m and down to +0.50% y/y.

• also medicinal drugs continues to decline. And Doctor’s services was stable. But Medical Care as a whole drooped to 1.96% from 2.08% y/y. Those are the three big pieces, but…

• …Medical Care CPI didn’t decline further because Dental Services (0.79% weight, about half of doctors’ services) had a big jump, y/y to 1.94% from 1.15%. Get those teeth taken care of, people.
• College tuition and fees ebbed to 3.45% from 3.81% y/y.
• Back to Transportation…while Used Cars jumped (mostly just getting back to trend), New vehicles continued to droop. 0.58% y/y from 0.90% y/y. And leased cars got cheaper.
• My early estimate of Median CPI is +0.27%, bringing y/y back up slightly to 2.81%. Note the monthly series is much more stable than core, which is one reason to like Median.

• The largest negative changes this month were in Motor Fuel, Fuel Oil, Miscellaneous Personal Goods, Infants’ and Toddlers’ Apparel, and Public Transportation. All -10% or more on an annualized basis, but mostly small too.
• Largest increases were Jewelry and Watches, Car and Truck Rental (both of those over 60% annualized), Footwear, Used Cars and Trucks, and Men’s and Boys’ Apparel.
• I think that’s enough for today as I have to go get on air for @TDANetwork in 15 minutes. Tune in! Bottom line here is: keep focusing on Median, inflation isn’t headed down YET, but…Fed is still going to ease this month.
• Totally forgot to do the four-pieces charts. Will have to skip this month.
• OK, the four-pieces charts – I’ll have them in my tweet summary so might as well post them here. As a reminder these are four pieces that add up to CPI, each 1/5 to 1/3 of the total.
• First up, Food and Energy.

• Core goods. Now, this is interesting because it shows the reversal of some of the ‘transitory’ effects. Our model has this going to 1%, but recent outturns had been discouraging. Now back on track.

• Core services, though, continues to be drippy. A lot of the sogginess is medical care. I wonder what happens if the Administration wins and Obamacare is repealed? Short term, probably higher, but in the long-term less government involvement is also less inflationary.

• Finally, rent of shelter. Running a bit hotter than I expected it to be, and due to start fading a little. But no sign of a sharp deceleration in core while this is stable.

(I had to end this earlier this month because of the TD Ameritrade Network appearance, but went back and added the four-pieces charts later.)

The bottom line here is that nothing has changed in terms of what we should expect from central banks. They’re willing to let inflation run hot anyway because they thing low inflation was the problem. So they will ease this month, and probably will continue to ease as growth wanes. They will feel like they are ahead of the curve, and when inflation ebbs as I expect it to, they will say “see? We were right and we were even pre-emptive!”

Indeed, this is really the biggest risk in the longer-term. The Fed is going to be “right” but for all the wrong reasons. Inflation is not going to be declining because growth is slowing; these are merely coincident at the moment. Lower interest rates causing lower money velocity (since the opportunity cost of holding cash is going to go back towards zero) is the cause of the coming ebb in inflation which, by the way, won’t be as severe as in the last recession. But the risk is that the Fed becomes more confident in their models because they “worked,” and rely on them later.

Here’s an analogy. I just tossed a coin and the Fed went off, and ran complicated models factoring in gravity, wind resistance, the magnetism of the metals in the coin, biometric analyses about the strength of my thumb, and they concluded and called “heads.” It turned out to be heads, and the Fed is very happy about how well their models worked. Now, I know that it was “heads” because I tossed a two-headed coin.

So later, when I toss the coin again, the Fed runs the same model and calls “tails.” But this time, they are much more confident in their call, because of the model’s past success. Of course, since they didn’t actually get the right answer for the right reason the first time, there’s no more chance of being right than there was before…they’re just going to rely on it much more. And that’s the risk here. When the next inflation upturn happens, which I think will happen in the next cycle, the Fed will be very confident that their ‘expectations-augmented Phillips curve’ and Keynesian models will work…and they’ll be very, very late when inflation goes up.

But a really important point is: that’s not today’s trade. I doubt it’s even this year’s trade, although if I’m wrong and the peak isn’t happening yet it may be. The market realities remain:

1. The Fed is going to ease this month, almost certainly 25bps.
2. The Fed and other central banks are likely to keep easing preemptively, and then keep easing when the recession begins, and keep policy rates too low once the next expansion starts (although market rates will signal when that’s happening).
3. Equities are too high for this growth regime; TIPS are way, way too cheap for any reasonably likely inflation regime…at least, relative to nominal bonds. But equities will probably take a while to figure that out.

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. 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.

• OK, CPI day at last. We get to find out if Powell meant “transitory” in the one-month sense (probably not) or in the 3-6 month sense (more likely).
• After all we have had three weak core CPI figures in a row: 0.110% for Feb, 0.148% in March, 0.138% in April. Three 0.1%s, rounded.
• Last month the culprit was used cars, -1.3% m/m, and Apparel at -0.8% m/m, the latter due to a methodology change. These are both short-term transitory, probably.
• Meanwhile, the evidence that core is being infected these last three months by tail events is in the median CPI, which was +0.26%, +0.27%, and +0.20% the last 3 months.
• Housing, on the other hand, remains strong, and this should continue for a bit; Medical Care remains weak with pharma especially (+0.1% y/y)…and I think that is “longer-term transitory” that should start to retrace higher.
• I am expecting a return to normalcy, not so much a rebound, in autos and apparel. But that should be enough to hit the consensus figures of 0.21% on core, 2.09% y/y.
• Longer-term, the fact that interest rates have fallen so far suggests that the small rebound we have seen over the last year and a half in money velocity may have trouble extending.
• So I think Median probably peaks late this year or early next, though I don’t expect it to fall off a cliff, either, in this recession.
• Grabbing coffee. Back in 11 minutes.
• So maybe a liiiiiittle more transitory than we thought! Core +0.11% m/m, +2.00% y/y.
• Last 12 months. The comp is easier next month, but none of the last 4 months would have exceeded it anyway!

• Apparel basically flat m/m, which is approximately what I expected…-3.06% y/y though, which includes the methodology change.
• CPI-Used Cars and Trucks was again down sharply m/m. -1.38%. That’s unlikely. Pushes y/y to +0.28%, Black Book has it about 1% above that.

• Housing: OER +0.26% m/m, Primary Rents +0.24%. Actually those aren’t far from the trends (y/y in each case declined a couple of hundredths, to 3.34% and 3.73% respectively), but last month had been chippier.
• Medical Care (and then I’m going to take a few minutes and dig deeper on some of these)…Medicinal Drugs (pharma) went into deflation. -0.11% m/m, -0.82% y/y. Chart in a moment. Doctor’s Services roughly unch, but only 0.30% y/y. Hospital Services bounced a bit, 1.30% y/y.
• Even with the bounce, Hospital Services is lower than two months ago, 3 months ago, etc. One year ago it was 4.70% y/y. Hospital Services is the largest component of the Medical Care subindex.
• Here is the y/y chart for drugs. Now, it’s very hard to measure this because there is tremendous dispersion in consumer costs for prescription drugs…massive differences based on which outlet, formulary, insurance, etc you have. Doing a lot of work on this. Sooo…

• this is the y/y picture for NONprescription drugs, which are much easier to measure. Basically no chg. So either prescriptn drug mkt is getting much more competitive (I doubt it), there is some change in collection method (possible), or a shift showing up as change.

• there is no lower-level index for drugs so we can’t really dig any deeper on that unfortunately. But it’s significant, not only for the CPI of course but for consumers generally (and the budget deficit) if health care costs really ARE slowing in a permanent way.
• CPI – College Tuition and Fees, essentially unch at 3.81% vs 3.86% y/y. But well off the lows.

• Now what does that last picture look like…oh, yeah, the S&P Target Tuition Inflation Index (my baby).

• Core inflation ex-housing down to 1.04%, the lowest level since February 2018. Still nowhere near the lows, nowhere near deflation, and with lots of transitory stuff in it.

• Core goods prices still in deflation, -0.2%. But lagged effect of the dollar’s 2017 selloff should just now be starting to wash into the core goods data. And we still haven’t seen the tariff effect yet. So this is still to come and the reason I don’t think we’ve peaked yet.

• WEIRD: Biggest declines on the month were used cars & trucks (-15.3% annualized), Leased cars & trucks (-13.8%). Biggest gainers: Car and Truck Rental (+26.5%), Public Transportation (+24.8%).
• Early estimate for Median CPI is +0.21% m/m, making y/y 2.81%. So, again, it’s a tails story.
• Sorry, didn’t calculate the sheet for y/y. Should be 2.76% y/y for median, down from 2.80%.
• Here is m/m Median CPI. Notice there’s really no major slowdown here. It’s been pretty steady and rising slightly y/y for a while. Nothing below 0.2% m/m since last August.

• OK, four pieces and then we’ll sum up. Piece 1 is food and energy.

• Piece 2 is core goods. As I said, I expect this to turn back higher. This is where you find Used Cars and Apparel…so transitory stuff is big here. This is also where tariffs fall heaviest.

• Piece 3 is Core Services less Rent of Shelter. Same story here: “What is up with medical care?” It may be that since consumers under the ACA end up paying out of pocket for a much larger share, they’re bargaining harder. That could be why it feels so much worse than this.

• Finally, rent of shelter – same old same old. No deflation while this remains steady as a rock.

• So, in sum. I do think that Powell is right in focusing on the “transitory” inflation slowdown. Better measures, such as Median (see below for Median vs core), show no significant slowdown yet.

• …and it’s hard to see where a slowdown would come from. Medical Care is already very slow. Core goods is already very slow, with negative tails already in the data but not much sign yet of the tariff effect sure to come. Housing is solid.
• So for now, I expect median inflation to continue to crawl higher. As we get later in the year, though, unless interest rates rebound a lot higher there’s a decent chance that money velocity droops again.
• Now, money velocity is already REALLY low so it may not. This chart isn’t our best model but it suggests velocity is already too low for the level of int rates (I’m not sure it’s a linear function near zero though). It was responding, but lower int rates may truncate a bounce.

• OK that’s all for today folks. Visit us at http://www.enduringinvestments.com if you want to have a more private chat. Thanks for tuning in!

Nothing more really to add – I will say that although Powell is right and these are transitory factors, I have lost faith that the Chairman is a “different sort” of Fed Chair since he doesn’t have an academic background. He was at first, but appears to have been captured by the econocognoscenti. Ergo, I expect the Fed will ignore the fact that inflation is still drifting higher, and start to cut rates as the growth figures make it ever clearer that the economy is heading towards (if not already in) recession. Long-end yields are already 110bps or more off the highs, so I think the bond market already has more than half its recession-rally finished (I don’t think we’ll have new low yields this cycle since I don’t think inflation will collapse and I don’t think the recession will be as bad). But stocks haven’t even begun their earnings-recession selloff, so…