Consumer Prices Have Risen Every Month Since ‘Bidenomics’ Began, Up 19.5% To Record High

After a fourth straight month of hotter than expected PPI, analysts’ expectations for CPI were tightly ranged around 0.3-0.4% MoM and printed +0.3% MoM (slightly below the 0.4% expected). The YoY headline CPI fell to +3.4% as expected from +3.5% prior

Under the hood, Services slowed modestly MoM…

On a 3m and 6m annualized basis, Energy costs are reaccelerating most…

Source: Bloomberg

Used car and truck prices along with Gas Utility prices plunged on a MoM basis…

Core CPI rose 0.3% MoM (as expected) with YoY slowing to +3.6%, also as expected…

Source: Bloomberg

Core goods deflation continues while Core Services continue to rise…

Source: Bloomberg

Core CPI YoY was 3.6% in April, the lowest it’s been in 3 years. The 1-month annualized fell to the same 3.6% as the YoY, which is why the YoY has been more reliable as a trend measure recently.

• Housing (rent and OER) contributed 17.5 bps to monthly core CPI inflation in April. While still hot (2018-19 average was 11 bps), it’s the lowest monthly contribution since Dec 2021. And as we show in the chart, YoY housing in CPI is cooling.
• Virtually all of the excess core CPI inflation YoY–the part of inflation above and beyond Fed target – resulted from housing & auto insurance. Core non-housing services have heated up on a higher frequency basis but haven’t weighing much (yet) on the annual print.
• Also, while not in core, but extremely important for anyone who eats food: grocery prices actually fell -0.2% MoM in April and are running 1.1% YoY according to the Biden BLS. We doubt anyone will believe this number, which was goalseeked so that wage growth would strongly outpace grocery inflation. Relative to wages, grocery prices are back down below their 2019 levels. This, too, won’t be believed by anyone.

And one step deeper – the so-called SuperCore: Core CPI Services Ex-Shelter index – rose 0.5% MoM up to 5.05% YoY – the hottest since April 2023…

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