The Fed has no excuse to stop hiking until something breaks
This article first appeared on SchiffGold.
The latest seasonally adjusted inflation rate for September came in at 0.38%, dropping to 8.25% YoY. Median expectations had been for 0.3% MoM and 8.1% YoY so the hot number hammered markets on the open, especially precious metals.
The markets have climbed their way back as of publishing, indicating the market may be starting to understand the Feds predicament even though the probability of a 75bps hike in November is now a near certainty at 99%.
Figure 1: Month Over Month Inflation
The CPI was again held back by falling Energy prices. This could be partially driven by the Biden administrations horrendous and shameful decision to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for political purposes. One of the most valuable emergency assets the US has is the SPR and it has been depleted to levels not seen since 1984 as shown below.
Figure 2: SPR Inventory
What happens when the draw-down ends in November (when it can no longer help the election)? Perhaps they will extend the releases and fully deplete the emergency stockpile. In either case, eventually the releases will stop and it’s quite possible energy prices could start to surge given the geopolitical environment.
The YoY CPI has clearly been helped from falling energy prices. This would reverse quickly with a spike in prices.
Figure 3: Year Over Year Inflation
The chart below compares the current month to the 12-month average. The fall in energy prices can be seen clearly in this chart with the current month at -2.1% vs 1.5% for the 12-month average.
Unfortunately, many of the other big categories are still increasing relative to the 12-month average. Specifically, Education, Medical Care, Shelter, and Transportation. These categories collectively makeup more than 50% of the CPI. This will make it very hard for the CPI to come down when so many components are still increasing.
Figure 4: MoM vs TTM
The table below gives a more detailed breakdown of the numbers. It shows the actual figures reported by the BLS side by side with the recalculated and unrounded numbers. The weighted column shows the contribution each value makes to the aggregated number. Details can be found on the BLS Website.
Some key takeaways:
Month over Month Data (MoM) | Year over Year Data (YoY) | ||||||||||
Category | Weighting | BLS Reported | Sep 2022 | Aug 2022 | MoM Diff | Sep 2022 | BLS Reported | Sep 2022 | Sep 2021 | YoY Diff | Sep 2022 |
Commodities | 21.3 | 0.0 | 0.02 | 0.46 | -0.44 | 0.00 | 6.7 | 6.68 | 7.31 | -0.63 | 1.37 |
Education | 5.3 | 0.2 | 0.18 | 0.23 | -0.05 | 0.01 | 1.4 | 1.36 | 1.66 | -0.31 | 0.08 |
Energy | 8.2 | -2.1 | -2.11 | -5.02 | 2.91 | -0.17 | 19.9 | 19.87 | 24.87 | -5.00 | 1.45 |
Food | 13.6 | 0.8 | 0.78 | 0.79 | -0.01 | 0.11 | 11.2 | 11.24 | 4.59 | 6.65 | 1.57 |
Medical Care | 6.9 | 1.0 | 0.99 | 0.77 | 0.22 | 0.07 | 6.5 | 6.51 | 0.90 | 5.62 | 0.46 |
Other | 1.4 | 0.3 | 0.27 | 0.30 | -0.04 | 0.00 | 5.9 | 5.93 | 3.45 | 2.48 | 0.10 |
Recreation | 3.1 | 0.2 | 0.16 | -0.03 | 0.19 | 0.00 | 4.1 | 4.06 | 3.46 | 0.60 | 0.15 |
Household Ops | 0.8 | 0.8 | -0.16 | 0.14 | -0.30 | 0.00 | 6.7 | 17.35 | 6.55 | 10.80 | 0.14 |
Shelter | 32.5 | 0.7 | 0.75 | 0.69 | 0.06 | 0.24 | 6.6 | 6.60 | 3.15 | 3.45 | 2.15 |
Transportation | 5.9 | 1.9 | 1.90 | 0.51 | 1.39 | 0.11 | 14.6 | 14.59 | 4.42 | 10.17 | 0.73 |
Waste Mgmt | 1.1 | 0.7 | 0.73 | 0.60 | 0.13 | 0.01 | 4.9 | 4.93 | 3.72 | 1.22 | 0.05 |
Total Weighted | 100.1 | 0.4 | 0.38 | 0.09 | 0.29 | 8.2 | 8.25 | 5.39 | 2.86 | ||
Data as of: Sep 2022. All values are in %. The Weight columns show the contribution after weighting.The weighted columns do not show totals because it would be redundant to the total in the recalc. | |||||||||||
While the Fed does have different categories, their aggregate numbers match to the BLS.
Their data goes back to the 1950s. Unfortunately, they do not publish the weightings of each category so it would be impossible to do a similar analysis showing the impact of each category on the overall number.
Looking at history back to 1950 puts the current spike into perspective. Remember that if the methodology was the same, inflation would still be above 15%!
Unfortunately for the Fed, things are different this time because the US Debt is now over $31T! This is why the Fed Funds rate (gray line) is still so far below the inflation rate.
They cannot actually raise rates without creating a complete melt-down in the markets. That being said, they have likely done enough already to sow the seeds for the next crisis.
Figure 5: Fed CPI
Using the Fed categorical data shows a slightly better picture, with most categories below the 12-month average. The exception is Housing and Medical Care which are still very high.
Figure 6: Current vs History
The BLS weightings have only been scraped back to 2012, thus the chart below shows the past 10 years of annual inflation data, reported monthly. The volatility in Energy can be seen clearly over this time period.
The YoY CPI fist went over 4% in April of 2021. The recent drop has stabilized with the latest month. Increased Energy prices in October could very well keep the CPI from going down.
Figure 7: Historical CPI
Last October, the CPI was up 0.87% MoM. Given this large value falling off next month, there may be another reduction in the YoY number with the next CPU release. But the Fed is very focused on the monthly number to ensure the trend us down. Unfortunately, the stickier prices will likely keep the CPI high again next month even if it is less than 0.87%.
This keeps the pressure on the Fed to keep raising rates. The Fed has been playing Chicken with the market, promising to get inflation under control before lowering rates again. Higher inflation forces them to keep raising, but they only have so much runway before something breaks.
This won’t be a little break (e.g., Q4 2018), or a big break (e.g., U.K. Pensions), or even a very large break (e.g., Great Financial Crisis). When the Fed breaks something this time, it will be THE break. Something that will send tidal waves through the global economy. At this point, everyone will see the Fed has been bluffing all along and the game of Chicken will come a sudden halt.
In order to avoid breaking something (though it’s probably too late) and send the Federal government into a debt spiral, the CPI needs to be crashing so the Fed can call off the rate hikes. But the CPI cannot come down significantly while real rates are still negative. The mainstream can claim the latest CPI as good news because the three month trend is down. But this completely ignores the impact of Energy and the usage of the SPR to create the recent and temporary relief. It’s a mirage!
Once Energy starts climbing in the face of the Fed hikes, people will wake up the new paradigm that higher inflation is here to stay. At the same time, the Fed will likely be at or near a pivot to support a crashing economy. These two events together will launch silver and gold to new all-time highs.
Data Source: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/ and https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL
Data Updated: Monthly within first 10 business days
Last Updated: Sep 2022
Interactive charts and graphs can always be found on the Exploring Finance dashboard: https://exploringfinance.shinyapps.io/USDebt/