US producer prices (PPI - final demand) rose +1.0% m/m in June, up +7.1% from a year ago. PPI is often seen as a leading indicator of consumer inflation, though it is typically more volatile (bigger swings both up and down).
The chart of y/y PPI for finished goods, which goes back to 1947, gives a better historical perspective of where PPI currently stands.
Core PPI (excluding food and energy) rose +1.0% m/m in June, up +5.6% from a year ago.
Again, Core PPI for finished goods, which goes back to 1947, shows the current numbers in historical perspective. Check out that serious but short-lived surge in inflation after WW2 which I was talking about yesterday.
In short, the recent surge in inflation, at least so far, has been sharp and noticeable, but hardly unprecedented, especially considering the bout of deflation that took place last year with COVID.
If it persists for more than this year, or greatly intensifies, of course, that evaluation may change.
Someone asking if this could just be "base effect noise" (prices dropped last year, so any recovery looks like a large gain over last year). Not entirely, no. This is the absolute index:
As you can see, it's starting to break past pre-COVID trend. And even such a sharp recovery to trend would be painful.
The key question is whether it's mainly the product of short-term bottlenecks, which will eventually resolve themselves (as they did after WW2) or longer-term constraints on growth (as was the case in the 1970s).

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More from @prchovanec

15 Jul
The US reported +374 new coronavirus deaths yesterday, bringing the total to 623,838. The 7-day moving average - important given the irregular daily reporting from some states - rose back to 259 deaths per day. Image
The US reported +35,447 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday, bringing the total to over 34.8 million. The 7-day moving average rose to 26,704 new cases per day, its highest since May 22. Image
The long US decline in new COVID cases and deaths appears to be over, and are now beginning to rebound - mostly among the unvaccinated.
Read 26 tweets
13 Jul
Today in Microsoft Flight Sim, I'm off to the interior of Brazil to fly the Embraer EMB200 Ipanema, and explore the surprisingly fascinating world of crop dusters.
If this airplane looks familiar, that's because it was the model for Dusty Crophopper in the movie Planes.
Well, technically Dusty is an Air Tractor AT-502, manufactured in Texas not Brazil, but the EMB200 is a virtually identical airplane.
Read 42 tweets
13 Jul
Regarding inflation, it's good to define transitory vs. persistent. Transitory would be the next several months, to the end of the year. Persistent would be the next decade.
When trying to understand the economy, we tend to refer back to historical experiences as our model. In the case of inflation, for most of us, the go-to reference is the experience of the 1970s.
But there are other historical models that may capture the situation better. I'd argue it's possible that our current experience of inflation bears less resemblance to the inflation of the 1970s than the surge in inflation immediately after World War II.
Read 10 tweets
13 Jul
I'm not sure the size of the y/y figure tells you whether it's transitory or not. A high number could easily be as reflective of a temporary spike, due to bottlenecks, as it would a more lasting problem.
A lot of the price pressure being reported by companies in the ISM surveys do seem to reflect bottlenecks, as opposed to more persistent constraints. Of course, it's possible that one can turn into the other, if unresolved.
The fundamental problem here is that the entire supply side of the economy - from labor markets to foreign supply chains - has been thrown into utter chaos over the past year, even as stimulus spending has helped demand recover quite buoyantly.
Read 4 tweets
13 Jul
US consumer prices (CPI) rose +0.9% m/m in June, up +5.3% from a year ago, its highest y/y rate since January 1991.
Core CPI (excluding food and energy) also rose +0.9% m/m in June, up +4.5% from a year ago, its highest y/y rate since September 1991.
Often volatile US consumer energy prices rose +1.5% m/m in June, up +24.2% from a year ago.
Read 5 tweets
13 Jul
I've noticed that the consistency/reliability of timely COVID-19 data in the US has deteriorated over the past few weeks, due to patchy reporting by various states. This is making it harder to tell a story about what is happening. Even the CDC data gets constantly revised.
According to Worldometer, the US reported +129 coronavirus yesterday, bringing the total to 623,029. But several states, including Florida, are still missing. The 7-day moving average rose slightly to 216 deaths per day. CDC still isn't posting a number for yesterday.
The US reported +14,715 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday. The data is more complete than deaths, but Florida, Michigan, and a few others still missing. Still, the 7-day moving average rose to above 20,000 new cases per day, for the first time since late May.
Read 14 tweets

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