No. of Recommendations: 20
Over the past five months (June to November 2022), inflation has slowed to a crawl. Whether measured by the consumer-price index, or CPI, which most people watch, or the price index for personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, which the Federal Reserve prefers, the annualized inflation rate has been around 2.5% over these five months.
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Yes, you read that right. Yet hardly anyone has noticed this stunning development because of the near-universal concentration on price changes measured over 12-month periods...By chance I was one who noticed it, and posted about it.
https://www.shrewdm.com/MB?pid=25988498But I would not be *too* sanguine--as that post also notes, a lot of the slowdown is likely due to the recent pullback in energy prices.
Core inflation is still running pretty hot in the US.
Year on year has been around 6% for some time now, give or take, and the four month annualized rate is only down to 4.9%.
I do expect core inflation to pull back some more, the same way headline CPI has, though perhaps less so and more gradually.
For two reasons:
First, monetary tightening is no fun, but it tends to work--after a lag. 18 months is often cited.
And second, it's often helpful to keep an eye on the money supply.
Six month rate of growth of divisia M4 has actually been negative for six months now, now at -1.3%/year rate down from 4.9%/year in the six months ending March.
Year on year is only +0.2%.
Where broad money supply goes (measured in a meaningful way), big trends in inflation frequently follow.
The divisia M4 growth spike showed up in the April 2020 numbers, long before the headline CPI jumped.
Then the DM4 growth rate faded very rapidly, and has slowly drifted even lower.
Jim