samedi 21 mars 2015

US: Slowflation to Stand Out From Mixed Data Bag

The Department of Labor will release three more employment and inflation reports - directly tracking the two mandates of the Federal Reserve (Fed) - before the June 16/17 meeting, which is the earliest point when policymakers can make a rate hike announcement, based on last week's guidance overhaul.



One set of the CPI data will hit the wires next week and although Fed officials actually use a different metric (the price index for Personal Consumption Expenditures), the report out on Tuesday will attract a lot of attention from investors.



The most notable difference between the two gauges is that the former attributes a greater weight to the cost of shelter, the latter to health care.



While the CPI measures price changes in a set basket of goods, the PCE measures the prices based on what consumers have actually bought - so for example if a household switches from a cheaper domestic brand of beer to a fancier imported brew, it will show up in the PCE, not in the CPI.



Still, over time both metrics describe the trend in inflation quite similarly - after the recession their core components bottomed out in late 2010 before accelerating sharply over the next year or so and since mid-2012 have gradually turned lower, with the expectation of a brief rebound during last summer, and are now near cyclical lows.



For the upcoming February CPI report, economists are projecting an increase of 0.2% from a month ago which would then leave the year-over-year change at a negative 0.1%. In January the prices fell 0.7% and the inflation rate turned negative for the first time since October 2009.



The core data, which excludes volatile food and energy prices to show the underlying trend, should see a 0.1% monthly gain that would result in a 1.7% year-over-year print.



The Fed needs to be "reasonably confident" that inflation will eventually hit 2% over time before




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US: Slowflation to Stand Out From Mixed Data Bag

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