Last Wednesday’s CPI report, while not a surprise, still showed a year-over-year inflation rate of 4.2% - higher than in any month since April, 2023. For investors, this raises a number of questions. First, is this the peak for U.S. inflation and, if it is, how fast will inflation fall from here? Second, are we looking at the right inflation rate, anyway, given differences between CPI and PCE deflators, headline and core measures and the new Fed Chairman’s preference for trimmed mean and median readings?

Two weeks ago, Sari and I took a vacation - an extended road trip down the East Coast as far as Charleston and then inland back to New York through the Appalachians. On a long driving stretch on the way back, we stopped at a Jersey Mike’s just off the highway for some much needed nourishment. As we were waiting to pay, a talkative man, in the height of good humor, was ordering behind us. I don’t know if he knew anyone working at the store, but he acted as if he did. He said he’d just got a job after five months searching and he was going to celebrate - by buying two big subs - one for that evening and another to put in the fridge for the next night.

The Financial Accounts of the United States is a quarterly Federal Reserve publication containing a great many large numbers but very little commentary, presumably because the authors feel the numbers speak for themselves. And the numbers do speak rather loudly.