Sage Investment Club

SF Fed President Daly said that she is watching the services CPI ex housing for signs of inflation coming lower.

As a result, I looked at the the St. Louis Fed statistics website (FRED) and downloaded the data for the CPI YoY and the CPI Services ex Rent and Shelter to see exactly what each has done.

The headline CPI has moved down from a high in June 2022 at 9.1%. It moved to 7.1% last month.

For the Service CPI ex rent and shelter (which I assume is the housing she speaks of), it peaked 3 months later in September at 8.2% and is down to 7.3% currently.

Indeed the CPI services ex housing is lagging by three months. The index continued to move higher in August and September (it was near unchanged in July), when the headline CPI was starting its decent to the downside. However, it has two straight months of declines which we will eye on Thursday to see if the trend continues.

At times it seems the Fed is stuck on their playbook and will find something to complain about. Admittedly services inflation is a key component of inflation and there is a lag, but the good news is it has started to wander lower.

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