Wage growth in May didn’t keep up with inflation rate
Average hourly wage growth over the past year slowed slightly in May, rising 3.4% over the past 12 months to $37.53 an hour. This marks the slowest pace since 2021. After years of real gains, wage growth is no longer keeping up with inflation, at 3.8%, adding new...
PCE core inflation climbed at a 3.3% rate in April
Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure, rose at a 3.8% year-over-year basis in April, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today. Core PCE inflation advances 3.3% on year-over-year basis. The Fed’s...
A week of inflation news ahead–and it’s likely to be bad
Important inflation news on Thursday and the numbers for the Personal Consumption Expenditures index (PCE) are likely to continue the recent trend of bad inflation news. The headline PCE, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge is rapidly approaching 4% as a...
More bad news for consumers on electricity prices
Wholesale power prices on the largest electric grid in the United States jumped 76% in the first quarter due to soaring demand from data centers. The total cost of wholesale power on the 13-state grid managed by PJM Interconnection averaged $136.53 per megawatt-hour...
Wholesale prices race ahead in April in promise of higher future consumer inflation
Wholesale prices in April rose at their fastest rate in four years. The Producer Price Index, a measure of the costs that businesses pay for goods and services, rose 1.4% in April from the prior month, and is up 6% from a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics...
CPI inflation increased at an annual 3.8% rate in April
The headline Consumer Price Index rose 3.8% in April from a year earlier, the Labor Department reported on Tuesday, up from a 2.4% annual rate before the Iran war started in February and up from a 3.3% annual rate in March. In April consumer prices in the United...
Has wage growth slowed? It would be happening at a bad time
Earnings for American workers grew by less than expected in April, with a 3.6% growth in hourly earnings from a year earlier. The growth in hourly earnings was softer than the 3.8% increase that economists expected. This week’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) for April,...
The Fed looks to be planning for slowly growing inflation–as the only way out of a fiscal disaster
Watch what they do and not what the say is always good advice for investors trying to figure out what’s going on in the financial markets. Sure, the Federal Reserve has said that it has a target of no more than 2% inflation. And Jerome Powell & Co. have professed...
Yes, it’s very outdated but Core PCE inflation ran at a 2.8% rate in February before the war
The PCE inflation numbers always lag–they run a month behind the CPI inflation report. And the Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation report is even more backward looking than usual. The numbers reported today are for February–before the beginning of...
A minor difference of opinion on inflation and the effects of the Iran war
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s insistence that the effects of the Iran war would be minor and transitory apparently so got to ECB president Christine Lagarde that she called him out in front of an audience of high-level Group of Seven officials. Bessent played...
OECD raises its projections for post-Iran war inflation
The war in Iran will lead to a surge in inflation this year, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz pushes up prices for oil, gas and other commodities, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Thursday. The inflation rate in the United...
No interest rate move from the Fed today, but there was news
As expected, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee left its benchmark short-term interest rate at 3.50% to 3.75%. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t news from its Dot Plot projections for future GDP growth inflation, and interest rates. First, the Fed...
Will the Fed’s Wednesday Dot Plot move gold?
No secret. The big financial event of the week is the Wednesday, March 18, meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee. But the news out of that meeting will likely NOT be a decision on interest rates themselves. As of Friday, the CME FedWatch Tool was...
U.S. economy weaker than initially reported in fourth quarter of 2025
The U.S. economy was in worse shape in the weeks before the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran than earlier government estimates had suggested, according to two closely watched economic benchmarks released Friday. Growth was slower than initially...
What?!–Saturday’s unconditional surrender becomes today’s Iran war is very complete–and then…
The Standard & Poor’s 500 began the day with a 1.5% loss. Brent crude soared to $120 a barrel. The moves were totally reasonable. Investors and traders had feared that the war with Iran would spiral into a more destructive and wider regional war. And recent...
I expect BIG DRAMA behind the scenes at today’s Fed meeting
I expect big drama and suspense from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, September 17. Oh, not from the Fed’s decision on interest rates. The Fed Funds Futures market is pricing in a 96% chance that the Fed’s Open Market Committee will cut the benchmark interest rate by...
Are we seeing the end of “all news is good news” period?
I expect that little by little, optimistic sentiment will continue to leak out of stock prices. The last week has demonstrated to all but the most willfully blind that no good news on tariffs will last very long. And that it’s certainly not worth buying on any tariff...
Good PCE inflation report; but tariff, spending uncertainty postpones any Fed rate cut
The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, the inflation measure favored by the Federal Reserve, posted a lower-than-expected increase in April, rising 2.1% from year-ago levels. Economists had forecast that the PCE index would rise 2.2%. The core PCE, the...
This week real companies deliver earnings, guidance, and tariff news
Look for a flood of earnings news from retailers this week. After last week’s guidance from Walmart (WMT) that it would be raising prices because if the Trump tariffs, investors–and the Federal Reserve–will be waiting to see if retailers without Walmart’s...
What’s this China-U.S. tariff deal mean?
The United states and China have agreed to pause higher tariffs for 90 days. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday, after weekend talks in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng, that U.S....
It’s Inflation Week again
I expect inflation fears and hopes to move back to the top of the Wall Street agenda. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the Consumer Price Index inflation report for April on Tuesday, May 13 before the New York market opens. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg...
Please watch my new YouTube video: Why the Fed is almost certain to be wrong
Today’s video is Why the Fed is Almost Certain to be Wrong. Blame it in lags. Lags make economic forecasting really difficult at the best of times. How long does it take policies like tariffs and tax cuts to actually affect the economy and show up in the data?...
Bad inflation news is worse than expected
The Commerce Department reported this morning that the core Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, that is after stripping out volatile food and energy prices, climbed 2.8% in February from a year earlier. That was a faster pace than in January. On a monthly...Buckle those seat belts–it’s going to be a bumpy two weeks
I see the beginning of two weeks of extraordinary volatility. Look what’s on deck. On Tuesday, March 4, President Donald Trump will give his first joint address to Congress–it’s not officially a State of the Union address because newly elected presidents don’t...
Finally some good news on inflation due this week
Economists expect the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure–due Friday–to cool to the slowest pace since June. But while I think markets will cheer, it’s too soon to look for any change from the Federal Reserve on interest rate cuts. That will have...
Please watch my new YouTube video: The Fed is caught between a rock and a hard place
Today’s video: the Fed is between a rock and a hard place. Inflation has been stuck around 2.8% and the Fed would like to get it down to 2%. In January, the Fed paused on interest rates but Wall Street still hopes for two cuts in 2025. The March 19 meeting will...
Paul Krugman puts some numbers on the effects of Trump’s tariffs
Assuming that conventional economics still has some validity and that economic history has some predictive value, Paul Krugman, who won his 2008 Nobel-prize in economics for his work on international trading patterns, has put some numbers on the likely effects of the...
Big market reaction on a tiny move in CPI inflation
As of noon New York time today, January 15, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was ahead 1.30%. The NASDAQ Composite and the small-cap Russell 2000 were both up 1.80% on the session. Today’s big moves come on relatively minor changes in inflation trends in this...
It’s a pivotal week ahead for stocks
In the coming week I expect more inflation turmoil and the beginning of a challenging earnings season. After last week’s jobs surprise and Friday’s selling on the surprising strong showing on employment and the U.S. economy, the Wednesday, January 15 release of the...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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