The Preconomist

Ooh, a storm is threatening My very life today If I don't get some shelter Ooh yeah, I'm gonna fade away Rolling Stones – “Gimme Shelter”   The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for April showed a 0.3% increase in April after rising 0.4% in March. That puts inflation at 3.4% year-over-year (y-y), which ticked down by 0.1% from March’s reading, but still above the Fed’s target of 2%. While many of the expenditure categories are in line, there is one pesky category that will continue to be a thorn in the side of the Fed for a while based on current policy. So Inflation Went Down… That Is A Good Trend, Right? Of course, the downward trend is good, but consider that in June of 2023, inflation had plummeted to 3% y-y. Throughout the rest of the year it bounced around before hitting 3.1% in January but has ticked back up since. When you consider all items less food and energy there has been a pretty steady decline over the last year, but that value is st...

"What goes up must come down Spinnin' wheel got to go 'round" - Spinning Wheel - Blood, Sweat & Tears Commodities have been behaving as expected of late. Concrete and masonry have been flat or moving up as expected year to date (ytd). Building materials have reacting to the Fed's hesitating to cut interest rates with lumber. Fabricated steel products continue to decline with steel coil, which had been lagging, taking a more rapid descent in the past months. Even craft/non-supervisory labor has been starting to slow (down to +4.53% y-y versus a reading of +6.76% y-y this time last year) as inflation (CPI-U) has dropped from +4.94% y-y down to +3.48% y-y. So things are finally getting better? Industrial metals though have not followed suit though. The last month has seen a lot of steep price increases on the industrial metal side. - Aluminum: +4.61% m-m; +7.26% ytd - Copper: +7.58% m-m; +17.13% ytd - Nickel: +9.12% m-m; +17.53% ytd - Zinc: +10.33% m-m; +9.52% y...