S&P 500
7,226.20
+0.01%
Dow Jones
49,494.60
-0.62%
Nasdaq 100
27,685.40
+0.66%
Russell 2000
2,804.78
-0.02%
FTSE 100
10,364.50
0.00%
Nikkei 225
59,260.50
-0.78%

Economy

High PPI More Honest Than CPI, FOMC Has To Look Past It

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

This morning we saw February Producer Prices come out with a gain of +0.3%, and that is after a +1% gain in January.  The core rate on an ex-food and energy basis rose +0.5%.  We had penciled in estimates from Bloomberg as +0.4% expected on nominal PPI and +0.2% on Core PPI.

If you take everything into consideration, what it really looks like is that the Labor Department was just more realistic on PPI than it was on CPI with that seemingly wrong FLAT release on Friday.

Some may say that this should give the FOMC some pause over an expect 1.0% rate cut on the Fed Funds rate.  The problem is that inflation is taking the backseat to a crippled consumer and a credit strapped nation that can’t refinance out of mortgages that are too high of rates on too high of an appraised house on a higher basis than they should have ever been approved for.  The Fed is going to have to hold its nose, forget about the US Dollar becoming the US Peso, and hit the CUT button big either way.

Jon C. Ogg
March 18, 2008

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

US CPI Fell to 3% in June, Fed Expected to Continue with Rate Hikes
247patrick |

US CPI Fell to 3% in June, Fed Expected to Continue with Rate Hikes

Inflation in the US dropped to 3% annually in June, while the core consumer price index (CPI) fell to 4.8%.…
Inflation Rate Slowed Down to 6.5% in December: What Can We Expect From the Fed?
247patrick |

Inflation Rate Slowed Down to 6.5% in December: What Can We Expect From the Fed?

Inflation cooled in December, but some Federal Reserve presidents are still in favor of keeping interest rates elevated.
Douglas A. McIntyre |

NABE Recession-end: Stocks Gains, Dollar & Bond Losses in 2010

The November 2009 NABE Outlook, compiled by the National Association for Business Economics, has a new outlook for the rest…
Bitcoin and Ether See Gains Before First CPI Print in 2023
247patrick |

Bitcoin and Ether See Gains Before First CPI Print in 2023

Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest cryptocurrencies, saw slight gains ahead of the first consumer price index report of the…
Retail Sales Strength in June Should Be Positive Step for Q2 GDP
Jon C. Ogg |

Retail Sales Strength in June Should Be Positive Step for Q2 GDP

June's better-than-expected retail sales level should have a positive backdrop for second-quarter gross domestic product due at the end of…
Amazon Shares Ride Sideways During Holiday Season
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Amazon Shares Ride Sideways During Holiday Season

That the stock of Amazon.com has barely moved over the past month is strange because many analysts believe the company…
Personal Income and Spending Ticked Higher in November
Jon C. Ogg |

Personal Income and Spending Ticked Higher in November

Janet Yellen and her fellow Fed presidents have all indicated that they expect (or at least hope) inflation will return…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Caveats Confuse the June PPI & Retail Sales Data

Producer Price and Retail Sales are out for the month of June, and there is some good news and some…
CPI Shows Enough Inflation to Give Fed Cover for Rate Hike
Jon C. Ogg |

CPI Shows Enough Inflation to Give Fed Cover for Rate Hike

The Labor Department has released some news that will give the FOMC some additional cover for an excuse to raise…

Top Gaining Stocks

Cboe Global Markets
CBOE • Vol: 1,568,143
New Pluto Global
PSKY • Vol: 12,285,993
Seagate Technology
STX • Vol: 7,378,346
Oracle
ORCL • Vol: 26,317,675
Datadog
DDOG • Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ • Vol: 4,367,433
Clorox
CLX • Vol: 13,260,523
Stryker
SYK • Vol: 4,519,455
Mohawk Industries
MHK • Vol: 1,859,865
Amgen
AMGN • Vol: 3,818,618