Inflation Easing???

Don M.

Don M.

SF VIP
Location
central Missouri
The financial news reports were full of reports today, regarding the CPI for July falling .5% since June...Whoppe-De-Doo! The CPI, however, doesn't seem to include the prices of food and energy. While it's true that gasoline prices have come down a bit in recent weeks, those savings have been offset by the rising costs of food.

We did our weekly grocery shopping today, and while I'm pushing the cart, I look closely at the prices. Virtually everything we normally buy was up in price in just the past week. The most notable was a 4lb. pack of sugar....last week it was $2.10...today $2.79. About the only thing that seemed to be a bargain was avocados....last week $1.10, this week .89.

It's going to take a whole lot more of "balancing" the prices of consumer goods before I believe that inflation is slowing down.
 

Don, that was a good price for the avocados. My son was lamenting about their rise in price because he loves those things. Believe it or not, my grocery bills have averaged a little less per month than last year (about $1.30). As of now, I'm averaging $118 a month. I can easily calculate the figures because I use a self tallying (by month and year) budget spreadsheet. I've just started noticing price hikes at our local supermarket in the last couple of months. My mini lemon pies were 59 cents; a couple of weeks ago they were $1.49 (I usually buy two but I put one back), then came back down to 89 cents.

A 12 pack of Activia yogurt was $5.49 about 3 months ago, now it's $5.99. But I got a case from Costco because they are on sale this month...24 for $6.69. :D I eat yogurt daily, so I'll have my son pick up another case before the sale ends at the end of the month. At the local supermarket, their brand of 16 oz frozen vegetables are up by 20 cents and the 3 lb bag of Birds Eye broccoli florets is up by 50 cents. Many other prices have stayed the same. I don't buy meat, except for Jenny O turkey burgers and the occasional Cornish hen, so I'm not feeling that pain. Also not feeling the pain at the pumps.

The stock market was up nicely today, perhaps due to the indicators of the last couple of days and the possibility of avoiding a recession.
 

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While the overall slipped, the food at home category was up 1.3%, which was the 7th month in a row of 1.0% or higher and the year over year stands at 13.1% for the food at home. My personal CPI came in at 7.8%, after a June figure of 8.0%.

The market seems to think the easy money will be returned as the FED will have to reverse course sooner. Hard to figure when it is no secret what the FED watches and two of those indicators were up. 16% trimmed mean moved up from 6.9% to 7.0% and the Median CPI jumped from 6.0% to 6.3%.

The FED also watches the core and while it was expected to come in higher, it matched last month's 5.9%. That's way above the 2% target, if my math is correct.
 
Yep the food here is still going up as well, normally I would wait but had to have a few things, dairy, eggs. I will go these week to get some breakfast sausage loss leader for the freezer. The special is about half what they are charging for it now so it makes sense to stock up.
 
The prices on some things seem to be dropping, but in many cases I think people are becoming used to seeing the higher prices on many processed food items and have adjusted their budgets to accommodate them.

A few of my favorites are still missing from the local markets. I assume, it’s simply no longer possible to offer them at a price people are willing to pay.


The financial markets seem to be in a bit of a bear market rally which is usually followed by a significant drop.

All we can do is keep bumping along into the future!
 
know one knows what is next which is why for the most part market timers lag .

when the nervous nellies and those who have visions of being last man standing flush with cash sellout they think every notch upward is a sucker rally .

so they either wait or they just dip their toes in committing little of what they pulled out

markets turn way before anything changing is visible .

all the biggest gains come from when it looks like markets have no bottom .

all the biggest drops come from when we are breaking new highs and markets look like they are going to continue .

trying to guess ends up shooting most in the foot .
 
Not here it isn't...

The Bank of England has warned the UK will fall into recession as it raised interest rates by the most in 27 years. The economy is forecast to shrink in the last three months of this year and keep shrinking until the end of 2023.

The economy grew by just 0.4% in the first quarter of 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
It is struggling because of record inflation, staff shortages and supply chain issues - all of which have created an environment of low consumer and business confidence.
The Bank of England has predicted that the UK will enter a recession in 2022.
They expect the economy will decline by 1% each month of 2022, with it set to shrink in every quarter in 2023.



This could lead to little to no economic growth in the UK for the next three years.

Food , that's in the stores, and eating out is at an all time high... Fuel is astronomically high, more than ever in history.. Utilities have risen 54% since April 1st and is due to rise again.. over 60 % in October ..this on an already unaffordable price for most people...

Strikes are happening in most industries people demanding huge increases because of the huge increase in the cost of living, but people on fixed incomes like us Pensioners, don't get any rises...
 
Gas here has gone down a little bit. It was $4.35 on Monday but not at all stations.

Food at Walmart had gone up. Large eggs had gone from $2.99 on the 3rd to $3.16 on Monday (5 days). I noticed a price increase in most items.

Our electric bills have gone up too. My son's was twenty dollars more than usual.
 
SeniorBen said:
Gas is under $4.00 a gallon at most stations around here, so that reduction in fuel costs should reduce shipping costs, which (theoretically) should reduce prices of consumer goods.
Click to expand...

Except that most shipping is carried out by diesel fueled vehicles or jet fueled planes .
The cost of oil p/barrel is the one to keep an eye on for overall shipping cost and consumer goods cost. ..........
 
The Producer Price Index came out this morning and seems to be largely ignored by the corporate media. For those interested, food was up +1.0% for the month, which will likely get passed on (+15% annual).
 
Gas prices in my area vary from a low of $4.09 at Costco to a high of around $4.74 at some of the suburban stations.

If you add back the temporarily suspended gas taxes it isn’t really much of a drop.

People seem to keep on driving and doing the things that are important to them.

I’m concerned that for many people it is being financed with credit cards and at some point they will have to deal with the higher prices along with the increased cost of borrowing.
 
One third of the current inflation rate is from car prices on new and used cars .

merely getting the chips and worker issues solved would see a big dip.

this isn’t solved by fed policy
 
katlupe said:
Gas here has gone down a little bit. It was $4.35 on Monday but not at all stations.

Food at Walmart had gone up. Large eggs had gone from $2.99 on the 3rd to $3.16 on Monday (5 days). I noticed a price increase in most items.

Our electric bills have gone up too. My son's was twenty dollars more than usual.
Click to expand...
We've noticed that about the food at Walmart here as well.
 

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