Tag: inflation expectations

PCE Inflation and Revised GDP for Quarter 1

Posted on by Paul Gomme

The BEA announced May PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditure) data that reinforces the earlier CPI (Consumer Price Index) report: Inflation continues to creep down. Annualizing the month-over-month change in the PCE, inflation for May was 1.55%, well below the Fed’s 2% target. As we have commented before, these month-to-month changes contain a lot of noise and our preferred measure is the annualized 3 month change. By this measure, inflation for May was 2.45% – somewhat higher than the 2.2% reported earlier for the CPI. The headline year-over-year PCE inflation rate for May was 3.85%. As we have emphasized in previous posts, this year-over-year measure of inflation is slow to respond to changes in trend which means it will take some time for the year-over-year inflation rates to reflect the lower inflation rates that have come in over recent months.

Less rosy is the inflation picture coming from core PCE (that is, excluding food and energy). While the month-over-month rate was down in May – from 4.65% to 3.84% – the year-over-year and 3 month measures fell by roughly 0.1 percentage points. Presumably, the reason to look at core PCE inflation is that it provides a better gauge of underlying trend inflation than non-core PCE measures. But for our money, the 3 month PCE inflation rate does a good job capturing developments in trend inflation.

For June, expected inflation is now running below 2% at all horizons. Collectively, the results for CPI, PCE and expected inflation suggest that the tightening of monetary policy over the past year-and-a-half has brought down both actual and expected inflation. In this context, the Fed’s decision in June to pause its tightening of monetary policy seems like a good one, especially if one takes into account the well-known long and variable lags of the effects of monetary policy on the economy.

Finally, while we at Economic Snapshot usually do not comment on GDP (Gross Domestic Product) revisions, we are making an exception for the data released on Thursday by the BEA. The output revision was a very large 0.7 percentage points, from 1.27% to 2.00%. This upward revision of output can be attributed to upward revisions in consumption and exports, and a downward revision of imports (which has a positive effect on output since imports are subtracted from output). These effects were partially offset by small revisions in investment and government spending.

Second
Revision		Third
Revision		Difference
Output1.272.00+0.73
Consumption2.652.93+0.28
Investment-2.10-2.17-0.07
Government0.880.85-0.03
Exports0.661.00+0.33
Imports-0.75-0.37+0.38
GDP growth for the first quarter of 2023, and contributions to GDP growth by its major components.

The increase in real GDP was widespread according to the state GDP estimates. Real GDP increased in all 50 states in Q1. The largest increase came in North Dakota, 12.4% at annual rate and the lowest in Rhode Island and Alabama at 0.1%. Personal income increased in all but two states, Indiana (-1.0%) and Massachusetts (-0.9%).

March CPI, PPI and inflation expectations

Posted on by Paul Gomme

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The March CPI (Consumer Price Index) brought decidedly mixed news. Year-over-year, CPI inflation fell from 6% in February to 5% in March. Indeed, the year-over-year inflation rate has trended down since mid-2022. However, as we have pointed out in earlier posts, year-over-year measures of inflation are slow to reflect recent changes in trend since they are 12 month averages of past monthly inflation rates. The good news is that monthly (annualized) inflation is down from 4.5% (February) to 0.6% (March), well below the Fed’s 2% inflation target. A glance at the chart below will remind regular readers that monthly inflation rates exhibit considerable variability. Our preferred measure is the 3-month average of monthly inflation rates. This measure declined more modestly, from 4.1% to 3.8%. More importantly, the 3-month average inflation rate is still well above the Fed’s 2% target.

The news is decidedly worse when looking at core CPI inflation (that is, excluding the volatile food and energy components). On a year-over-year basis, core CPI inflation rose from 5.5% in February to 5.6% in March. On the other hand, the monthly core CPI inflation rate fell from 5.6% to 4.7%. Again, we prefer to look at the 3 month average to gauge the direction of trend inflation. The 3 month average of core CPI inflation fell slightly, from 5.2% to 5.1%. More troubling is that these measures are all well above the Fed’s 2% inflation target.

The producer price index (PPI) was released today that offered up a little more good news. The PPI fell 0.5% in March. Moreover, as noted by the BLS, “two-thirds of the decline in the index for final demand can be attributed to a 1.0-percent decrease in prices for final demand goods. The index for final demand services moved down 0.3 percent.”

Finally, short term inflation expectations have risen: For the one year horizon, from 2.1% in March to 2.6% in April; at the two year horizon, from 2.2% to 2.4%. These developments are, presumably, unwelcome by policymakers who are worried about higher inflation expectations becoming entrenched. Fortunately, the five year expected inflation rate fell from 2.2% to 2.1% while 10 year expectations dropped from 2.3% to 2.1%.

Overall, as mentioned at the outset, the news is mixed. Yes, the CPI is down. But, the year over year core CPI is up. The main reason for the difference between the CPI and CORE CPI is that energy prices fell: gasoline, down 17.4%, and fuel oil, down 14.2%. Given the highly volatile nature of food and energy it is useful to pay attention to the core measure.