Inflation at 0.1% for November (Updated)

We are now in deflation territory. Shelter is a lagging indicator so this will only continue to get better each month.
Now the Feds can make up for how much they screwed this up at the start and only do a 25 BPs increase this month.
Real Wages are tumbling and the labor market is starting to show cracks.

 

Core cpi up just 0.2% so it isn’t just falling energy prices. Great news.

 

Deflation? Nah.

Labor market hurting? Nah.

 

Wish I bought a bunch of stocks yesterday.

 

Two months in a row CPI came in lower than expected. Shelter is a 7 month lagging indicator. If it was not for that, it would be even lower. Prices are cooling at a much faster rate than expected.

As far as labor market, continuing jobless claims grow each week. A very obvious upward trend.
Continued Claims (Insured Unemployment)


In every recession, the labor market is one of the last to crack.

 

Dollar cost averaging is the best for most of us anyhow. Don't try to time the market right now.

 

I know I know. But mornings like this one make day trading look tempting.

 

lol trust me I know. The only time I knew it was easy to time it was the star of the pandemic. Right now, it's very shaky.

 

Time in the market > Timing the market

 

It's down to 7.1% for the year, right? Anyway, really good report. Thank you Joe Biden!

 

I would love to know how Biden had any influence on this. If anything, he and Trump are a big part of the reason why we even have inflation this high.
The feds raising the rates quickly this year is what's causing inflation to go down. If they didn't wait so long to start that in the first place, we wouldn't have had to hammer at it so hard.

 

Inflation cooled more than expected in November | CNN Business

 

The feds raising rates is just one reason inflation is going down. Improvements in supply are also a big part of it. No, Biden doesn't have much to do with it, just like he didn't have much to do with inflation increasing earlier this year.

Since June, inflation has been 1.1% (on a yearly basis). In other words, if we continue to see monthly inflation reports like we have these last 5 months, by next June inflation will be down to 1.1%. Not saying that is going to happen, but if we continue on this trend, it will.

 

And then there will be whispers about the fed going to negative interest rates because inflation is too low

 

Supply has not improved in itself. If anything it got worse because of China's zero covid policy. Supply starts to not matter as demand plummets. There are loads of data points showing demand is dramatically down. Inflation down to 1.1% would be bad. The target is always 2% and generally healthy for an economy.

 

I'm not seeing these lower prices outside of gas. Just went to the store yesterday and once again over $100 worth of the usual grub that used to cost half that 2 years ago. We went to Appleby's the night before and the dinners were still a third more than a year ago. My wife is upping her prices for the 7th time since 2020 because all of her suppliers are still jacking their prices. So to print one book before Covid might have cost $1.40, today is nearing $4. So how does the CPI get computed? Does it take into account baseline or are we talking month-over-month comparisons? We need negative CPIs for a year to get back to Pre-Covid levels. Even if the CPI hits 0 next month doesn't mean yay my steak costs as much as it did before Covid, it just means it's stopped increasing in cost compared to last month.

 

Not lower prices, it would take deflation to do that. Lower inflation means lower increase in prices. The Fed's target is to have inflation around 2%. Lower or higher than that causes problems across the economy.