Not much to say this month, but I have been tracking this lately, so I am posting updated graphs. There was a bit of a reversal in shelter vs. non-shelter inflation rates this month, which is probably mostly noise, although there have been reports of declining rents in some cities. Trailing 12 month core inflation is at 2.2%. The recent bump has mostly been because the months falling off the back end were low or negative. Even though 12 month core inflation has been rising lately, annualized core inflation from the last four months has been about 0.6%.So, the upward trend from the 12 month measure is sort of a false signal, but whether it goes up, down, or sideways from here is still to be seen. I continue to watch the flattening yield curve, but I admit that this show has been playing for longer than I had expected it to.
RE: "a bit of a reversal in shelter vs. non-shelter inflation rates this month"
ReplyDeleterents and homeowners equivalent were at +0.3%, pretty much as usual...shelter was only up 0.2% because of a 4.1% decrease in prices for "lodging away from home at hotels and motels"
Interesting. Thanks for the heads up.
Deletei did read that total shelter figure wrong, btw; it was +0.1%, as you implied...i'd read the wrong far right number on a wide spread sheet....
Deletewhile homeowners equivalent is a third of shelter and rent is another fifth, they include a lot of other homeowner's costs in that shelter component, such as water and sewer bills, landscaping and trash collection, repairs & maintenance, homeowner's insurance, and even dorm rooms ex board at colleges...it's rare though when one of those is enough of an outlier to seriously impact the final shelter number...
Yeah, I think housing costs are still a driving force in the CPI. I see the rents softening in closed access cities, but my guess is supply is still constrained nationally, in a growing economy. As you know, housing starts are feeble.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the economy has settled into slow growth stasis. The Fed will probably budge rates up.
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ReplyDelete