InflationData.com

Your Place in Cyber Space for Inflation Data

Current Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) 296.276 | Current Annual Inflation Rate 8.52% | Released August 13, 2022 for the year ending July 2022 | Next Data Release September 13th 2022 |

Today’s Featured Post

Have Commodity Prices Peaked? Does That mean Recession?

Aluminum-Copper-Zinc

A recent article from Elliottwave International suggests the possibility that Aluminum, Copper and Zinc may have peaked on March 7-8th. They included the following chart... And the following commentary: The Goldman Sachs Spot Commodity Index hit a high on March 8, and so did the Bloomberg Commodity Index. Crude oil futures made an intraday high on March 7 and a closing high on March 8. Platinum reached a closing high on March 7. Commodity prices are leading indicators of overall … [Read More...]

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2022: Highest June Inflation Since 1941

Monthly Inflation 2019- July 2022

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in June 2022, Annual Inflation rose to 9.1%

Inflation Summary:

  • Annual Inflation Rose from 8.58% in May to 9.06% in June
  • CPI Index rose from 292.296 to 296.311
  • Monthly Inflation for June was 1.37%, the highest June since 1941
  • The next release is on August 10th

June 2022 Annual Inflation was 9.06%.

Jan. 2021 — 1.40% ** Jan. 2022 — 7.48% ** Feb. 2022 — 7.87% ** March 8.54%

Apr. 2022 –8.26% ** May 2022 — 8.58% ** June 2022 — 9.06%

Crude Oil prices averaged over $100 per barrel for the month of June. While according to the AAA, Regular Gasoline prices averaged $5.016 in mid-June.

BLS June 2022 Inflation Report:

The BLS Commissioner reported: “The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 1.3 percent in June on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 1.0 percent in May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 9.1 percent before seasonal adjustment. The increase was broad-based, with the indexes for gasoline, shelter, and food being the largest contributors. The energy index rose 7.5 percent over the month and contributed nearly half of the all items increase, with the gasoline index rising 11.2 percent and the other major component indexes also rising. The food index rose 1.0 percent in June, as did the food at home index…
The all items index increased 9.1 percent for the 12 months ending June, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending November 1981. The all items less food and energy index rose 5.9 percent over the last 12 months. The energy index rose 41.6 percent over the last year, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending April 1980. The food index increased 10.4 percent for the 12-months ending June, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending February 1981.”

The Many Evils of Inflation

Popular Notion Quote

The popular notion that an increase in the stock of money is socially and economically beneficial and desirable is one of the great fallacies of our time. ~ Hans Sennholz

July 4th Cookout Will Cost You 17% More in 2022

July 4 Prices 2020- 2022

Whether you call it a “cookout”, “grilling”,  or  a “barbeque”, cooking over an outside fire with family and friends on Independence Day is an American tradition. Every year the American Farm Bureau tracks how much the family gettogether is going to cost and it’s no surprise that the cost is up this year. But what may be a surprise is how much it is up! According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) annual inflation is 8.6%.

Surprise, Surprise, The FED Raises Rates by .75%

Fed Funds Rate since 1955-2022

At its June 15th meeting, the FED announced that it will be raising rates by ¾%. Up until last week, this would have been a big shock to the market. But despite the imposed FED silent period leading up to their Wednesday meeting “somehow” journalists from all the major financial publications published remarkably similar articles predicting a 0.75% increase in the FED funds rate. Prior to this leaked guidance, the consensus was that the FED would increase rates by ½% but last week’s higher-than-expected inflation report threw a wrench into the works.

Everyone is making a big deal out of the fact that this is the first raise of that magnitude since 1994. And that it will double the FED funds rate. Liz Ann Saunders of Schwab wrote an article entitled “The FED Goes for Inflation’s Jugular with 0.75% rate hike” like that was some major feat. What they aren’t saying is that the FED funds rate is still ridiculously low on a historical basis.  And if the FED had started acting a year ago as they should have, they could have increased it at a more gradual pace. Looking at the chart below we can see that even if the FED follows through and the rate doubles from 0.75% to 1.5% it would still be only a little over half of the 2.5% of 2019.

Inflation Takes a Bite Out of Your Food Budget

Inflation Bite

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in May 2022, Annual Inflation Rose.

The food index increased 10.1 percent for the 12-months ending May, the first annual increase of 10 percent or more since the period ending March 1981.

BLS April 2022 Inflation Report:

According to the BLS commissioner’s report, ‘”The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 1.0 percent in May on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.3 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 8.6 percent before seasonal adjustment. The increase was broad-based, with the indexes for shelter, gasoline, and food being the largest contributors. After declining in April, the energy index rose 3.9 percent over the month with the gasoline index rising 4.1 percent and the other major component indexes also increasing. The food index rose 1.2 percent in May as the food at home index increased 1.4 percent…

Inflation Adjusted Gasoline Prices

Inflation Adj Gasoline Prices June 2022

Without looking at inflation-adjusted prices it is difficult to see where gasoline prices actually stand. Back in 1918 gasoline was $0.25 a gallon and by 1932 prices had fallen to 18 cents a gallon! But as we all know over the last 100 years the purchasing power of the dollar has fallen drastically so in order to get the true picture we can’t just say that the lowest price of gas was 18 cents per gallon, we need to adjust the price for inflation. When adjusting for inflation there are two prices… the first is called the “nominal price” and that is the actual price you would have paid for gas at the pump. The key price though is the inflation-adjusted price which calculates what the price would have been if we were spending current dollars on a specific date. In this case, we are basing our calculations on the value of a dollar in January 2020.

Inflation Rate of Electricity Prices

Inflation Adjusted Electricity Prices

Electricity Price Inflation Residential electricity prices in the U.S. have risen from an average of 7.83 cents per kilowatthour in 1990 to an average of 11.44 cents per kwh in 2010. This is a 46% increase in 20 years and sounds like a lot but as you can see from the chart below for many years[Read More…]

Inflation Adjusted NYSE Index

Inflation adjusted NYSE Stocks 2013

Source: inflationdata.com | NYSE Index Inflation Commentary To Print this Chart: When Printer dialog box appears be sure to switch to Landscape mode Note: Please feel free to link to this page but not to the image itself as the image may be renamed (or deleted) when it is updated but the page URL will[Read More…]

Inflation Adjusted Natural Gas Prices

Your Ability to Choose Should Increase Competition In years past consumers didn’t have a lot of choice when it came to their natural gas supplier, they were tied to the local gas utility, so if they wanted to charge a 541% markup you were pretty much stuck. But just prior to the new millennium states began[Read More…]

Inflation Adjusted Housing Prices

Inflation Adjusted Housing Index since 1890

Inflation Adjusted Real Estate Prices-  Lets take a look at the idea that housing prices always go up. Of course, each neighborhood is different, so some neighborhoods might be going down while a few miles away housing prices are skyrocketing but by looking at the nationwide average we can get a better picture of the overall trend. The St. Louis Federal Reserve publishes the following chart that shows the S&P/Case Shiller National Home Price Index and by adjusting those prices for inflation we can get a better picture of how real estate prices really act. Is a home a good investment or not?

Inflation Adjusted Bonds

Inflation Indexed Bonds

Inflation Indexed Bonds Performance- U.S. Treasury Inflation indexed bonds are supposed to protect you from the ravages of inflation while providing a safe and decent rate of return on your money. Obviously, since safety is generally inversely proportional to risk, if  inflation indexed bonds are very safe you would expect the rate of return to be[Read More…]

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