Friday, November 11, 2022

Why we might expect that inflation will keep losing momentum in the months ahead

See The Inflation Cooldown Is Finally Here by Justin Lahart of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"core goods prices declined 0.4% from September, registering their first drop since March. This was driven by a 2.4% decline in used car and truck prices. With Manheim data showing that wholesale used-vehicle prices are in sharp retreat, there is likely more to come on this front. A lot of other goods prices also fell, including for furniture, appliances and apparel—reflections, perhaps, of how easing supply-chain troubles and some retailers’ too-high inventories are changing the inflation dynamic. [also, with higher interest rates fewer people are buying houses which depresses demand for household furniture and appliances-CM]

Prices for medical-care services fell 0.6% from September, which was the first decline since June 2021. This category, too, could put a lasting drag on prices. As Omair Sharif of Inflation Insights LLC has pointed out, each year the Labor Department updates its price index for health insurance, and whichever direction that update takes prices tend to persist until the next update. The annual update was reflected in Thursday’s report, and it showed an unadjusted decline of 4% from September; over the previous 12 months, it had shown an average monthly gain of 2.1%."

"rent-price figures are due to cool at some point in the months ahead. That is because the Labor Department’s measure of rents reflects what renters at large are paying—both those who have just signed leases, and those who signed them a while ago. As a result, it tends to lag changes in rents for newly signed leases. And lately, data from Zillow, CoreLogic and others have shown rent prices are cooling. Property-management-software provider RealPage reported that apartment rents fell 0.6% in October from September, which was the third-largest drop it has recorded since 2010; only the pandemic-lockdown months of April and May 2020 showed bigger declines."

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