The Fed met YESTERDAY and left the federal funds rate unchanged even though this is their primary indicator of inflation and it is more than double the average rate post-Great Recession.
There were just three votes with the temerity to suggest that inflation might be a problem right now.
But SPX is up! one half of one percent at this hour, threatening to make another all time high. That's all that matters!
None of them give a shit about YOU!
Under Powell core pce inflation exceeded 10Y yield for 4 consecutive years (2020-2023).
Under Burns it was for only 2 (1974-1975).
The Bernank was Fed chair in 2012 when inflation only just barely outran 10Y yield.
Fourth-quarter GDP revised down to just 0.7% growth; January core inflation was 3.1%
Economic growth was much slower than expected in the final three months of 2025 while core inflation rose to start 2026, the Commerce Department reported Friday. ...
The first revision of the GDP reading was a sharp step down from the previous estimate of 1.4% and well below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 1.5%. It also marked a considerable slowdown from the 4.4% gain in the prior period. For the full year, GDP posted a 2.1% increase, or one-tenth of a percentage point lower than the previous reading. In 2024, the economy rose at a 2.8% pace. ...
On the inflation side, readings for January were mostly in line with estimates, though they showed price increases running well ahead of where the Federal Reserve would like. ...
Core pce inflation has been range-bound around 3% since Dec 2023. For 2009 through 2020 it averaged half that, 1.5%.
The compound annual rate of real GDP growth since 2017 has been 2.416%, almost 34% lower than the post-war rate for 1947 through 1984 of 3.652%.
The rate for 1984 through 2017, also using today's data, was 2.675%, also higher than the rate since the Trump tax reform eight years ago.
Trump has not made America great again, any more than Reagan did.
Does anyone in leadership really care about what this persistent high inflation is doing to America?
This higher inflation level, measured on a year over year basis, has persisted for 19-months from April 2024. We're just going sideways, not coming down.
Next we'll hear from Trump that this is the new normal and that higher inflation is good akshully.
No, the Fed started cutting in September 2024 in error, obviously, and Trump wants the Fed to cut some more.
Meanwhile Jeff Cox for CNBC is just phoning in the story:
Fed’s main gauge shows inflation at 2.8% in November, edging further away from target
... The personal savings rate rose in November to 3.5%, down 0.2 percentage point from the prior month. ...
How does the personal saving rate rise when it's down 0.2, Jeff?
Yes, the personal saving rate fell from 3.7% the prior month to 3.5% in November.
People are paying for higher prices at the expense of saving.
The U.S. economy grew at a much greater-than-expected pace in the third quarter, boosted by strong consumer spending, a delayed report released Tuesday showed.
U.S. gross domestic product, a sum of all goods and services produced in the sprawling U.S. economy, expanded by 4.3% in the July-September period, the Commerce Department said in its initial reading of third-quarter growth. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect a gain of 3.2%. ...The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s primary inflation gauge, rose 2.8% during the period, and 2.9% for core which excludes food and energy. Both were above prior respective readings of 2.1% and 2.6% and remain well above the Fed’s 2% inflation gauge. Also, the chain-weighted price index, which accounts for changes in consumer behavior such as switching to less expensive products for pricier items, rose 3.8%, a full percentage point above the forecast. ...
But the damn fools will cut DFF again no doubt, despite the fact that recent cuts averaging 1.44 have done nothing to reduce inflation, or increase it.
The inflation rate has been going sideways the whole time in the high 2s since April 2024.
The metric averaged 1.61% 2016-2020 inclusive.
At 1.61% inflation your money is worth half what it was in 45 years, at 2.86% just 25 years.
CoRe InFlAtIoN rAtE hElD aT 2.9% In AuGuSt, aS eXpEcTeD, FeD’s GaUgE sHoWs
The damn thing's elevated 74% above the average 1.67 for the twenty-five years 1996-2020 and we're supposed to be OK with it because it's "as expected".
Jai Ya.
The July 2025 yoy rate of core pce inflation, the Fed's key measure, rose to 2.877%, the third increase in the rate since April.
The average rate 2009-2020 was 1.5%.
Averaging 2.77% for the last year and a half is not progress.
... the Fed chair is clearly more convinced by the employment side of that equation, indicating that “adjustment” may be necessary — a big hint that the central bank is poised to restart cuts in interest rates next month.
This was itself a surprise to investors, who seemingly were expecting a snoozefest. The dollar dropped sharply, government bonds jumped in price and stocks picked up at the end of a rough week as markets baked in those new expectations. A cut next month is now seen as a done deal, with likely chops in the following two meetings too. ...
If employment data for August picks up from its summer lull, which we will not know until the first week of September, then the Fed will be in the awkward spot of cutting interest rates in to a decent jobs market with inflation still running above target. “The Fed would risk a policy error if it were to cut rates,” warned analysts at Bank of America. ...
The Fed is supported by structures that protect its independence, but anyone who doubts Trump’s desire and willingness to bend it towards his will is kidding themself ...
More.
Complete tosh.
The Fed is data dependent, and there are two inflation readings and one employment report intervening before the next rate decision.
Powell never even got close to saying the FOMC was poised to make a policy change. His remarks, as always, emphasize data and contextualize hypotheticals, that's all.
The press are scoundrels trying to bully the Fed like this. They are on Trump's level in Dante's Inferno.
Powell said conditions "may warrant adjusting our policy stance." That could include a rate hike as well as a rate cut. He said "risks to inflation are tilted to the upside" while "the labor market appears to be in balance" even after the huge downward revisions to total nonfarm employment which got the head of the BLS fired.
In fact, he said that the latest data for July core pce inflation, which won't be out until Friday, indicate 2.9% year over year, an uptick from June's 2.8%. That's not good news for the rate cut cheerleaders, and that's why no one is reporting it.
The FOMC is not going to cut the interest rate if that happens and employment remains steady.
August 29 and September 5 will tell us what is likely to happen on September 17, not The Financial Times. Fittingly, the ignoramus for The Financial Times ends her column with a preposition.
And don't forget core cpi inflation on September 11. Powell & Company will have all the very latest data for their decision, on which they will rely:
Monetary policy is not on a preset course. FOMC members will make these decisions, based solely on their assessment of the data and its implications for the economic outlook and the balance of risks. We will never deviate from that approach.
Hey, they're only off by a factor of 4.5x.
Low inflation expectations based on June were clobbered by the facts, but to hell with the facts. $SPX is down only 0.07% at this hour.
The market cheerleaders desperately cling to the belief that the Fed must lower interest rates in September. When the numbers come in 0.1 below expectations, they go wild and drive up stocks like madmen believing they must be right. When the forecast misses like this they just hold.
On a year over year basis, the forecast was for +2.5% for overall wholesale prices, but they got +3.3% instead, seasonally adjusted.
For core wholesale prices the consensus forecast was for +2.9% year over year, but they got +3.7% instead, again seasonally adjusted.
Wholesale prices rose 0.9% in July, much more than expected
Wholesale prices rose far more than expected in July, providing a potential sign that inflation is still a threat to the U.S. economy, a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Thursday showed.
The producer price index, which measures final demand goods and services prices, jumped 0.9% on the month, compared with the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.2% gain. It was the biggest monthly increase since June 2022.
Excluding food and energy prices, core PPI rose 0.9% against the forecast for 0.3%. Excluding food, energy and trade services, the index was up 0.6%, the biggest gain since March 2022. ...
It's not a potential sign of inflation, you idiots. It's a real sign.
The year over year numbers, not seasonally adjusted, for core wholesale price increases in the July report are oddly unchanged from the June report in no respect, for the increases since October 2024. In fact, the figures are exactly the same to five decimal places. It's like everybody went on vacation and just copied and pasted and went to the beach:
Nov 2024: 3.35987
Dec 2024: 3.74962
Jan 2025: 3.92532
Feb 2025: 3.73239
Mar 2025: 3.78846
Apr 2025: 3.07652
May 2025: 3.21542
Jun 2025: 2.62853
and Jul 2025: 3.65568.
The average of these Nov thru May is 3.54965. July looks like that, but June sure the hell still does not.
I smell a rat.
Meanwhile . . .
Core cpi inflation yoy averaged 2.9% in the first half of 2025, but 3.1% in July.
Core pce inflation yoy averaged 2.8% in the first half of 2025 (July numbers come Aug 29th).
But core wholesale prices were up 3.4% in the first half on average, and 3.7% in July according to today's report.
How long can producers not pass that along? Or do we have a broader issue here with trustworthy numbers, because Mad King Ludwig is in charge?
If they lived through that, we can live through this, and we will.
Core personal consumption expenditures year over year have been stuck in a range of 2.78% year over year for eighteen long months.
This is shaping up to become the regrettable new normal.
Core pce had averaged just 1.50% year over year for twelve years from 2009-2020 inclusive. The rate has been 85% higher than that for a year and a half now on an average basis.
The 2.78% rate is but little lower than the 2024 average of 2.81%, and the 2.75% average for the first six months of 2025 still rounds up to 2.8%.
You remember 2024. Joe Biden was president, and so far in 2025 he might as well still be.
Inflation is the worst tax. Unfortunately it's the Uniparty's policy.
Joe Concha never really does get to his point in this column, but he does spread a lot of nincompoopery about like so much manure on a field.
This is the guy who masked himself and his kids while outdoors during COVID-19 because his wife is a doctor and told him he had to, which is very amusing given Joe's interest in Democrats' inability to "connect" with young men.
Joe Concha lives in an imaginary world of fanciful creation and takes his marching orders, repeating stupid.
Trump's mandate, for example, "the greatest verdict in history" he says, in 2024 was actually smaller than W's in 2004.
Even Jimmy Carter's was bigger in 1976 than Trump's was in 2024.
Core pce inflation released this past week came in at 2.52%, not 2.1% as Joe says. Joe wouldn't know core if he ate an apple.
Just 49.6% had full time jobs in April 2025 vs. 50.4% in April 2023, 0.8 points lower than two years ago.
Also two years ago, unemployment was 0.8 points lower at 3.4% than Joe Concha's current "historically low" level, again having touched a level under Joe Biden not seen since May 1969.
Joe stealing glory from Joe. Tut-tut.
Democrats may have had trouble connecting with young men in 2024, but the Biden administration really did drop the bigger ball of communicating its record of historically low unemployment. The Wall Street Journal trumpeted it for them in 2023, but you'd hardly remember the fact.
Meanwhile Joe Concha's "respected" GDPNow model got 1Q2025 GDP wrong by 2.4 points lol.
With an actual negative print now at -0.2% for the first quarter, the set-up for a dead cat bounce in 2Q would seem obvious.
But you never know with Trump in charge, and for my money you have to bet against Mr. Unpredictable.
If Jonathan Swift were here, he might say that it is the Republicans who are led by a changeable female mind, not the Democrats, which may be why Joe Concha likes him so:
The rate was last lower than in April 2025 in March 2021 at 2.20% yoy, which is good news.
