June 2018 Consumer Price Index
Submitted by Atlas Indicators Investment Advisors on July 25th, 2018
How the coordinated actions of the world's central bankers are beginning to diverge.
Prices paid by producers and wholesalers continued edging higher in June according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Their Producer Prince Index (PPI), which measures final demand, rose 0.3 percent as the first half of 2018 ended. This increase follows upticks of 0.1 percent and 0.5 percent in April and May respectively. Year-over-year, the PPI gained 3.4 percent, the largest
Small business confidence remains high in the U.S. according to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). Their optimism index gave back just 0.6 points in June after reaching its second highest reading ever in May. Despite the monthly setback, this reading of 107.2 is the sixth best tally in the survey’s 45-year history.
America’s trading shortfall improved in May 2018 according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Our nation’s goods and services deficit dropped $3.0 billion to $43.1 billion from April’s downwardly revised tally (originally $46.2 billion). This improvement put the monthly trade gap at its narrowest reading since October 2016.
Clairvoyance is not part of the Atlas investment algorithm. Endeavoring just to interpret current data is challenge enough. In fact, since various agencies and institutions revise past data with some regularity, even seeing the past sometimes proves difficult. Nevertheless, we do have a crystal ball and dusted it off at the most recent pie party to make some bold predictions.&
May 2018’s iteration for income and outlays from the Bureau of Economic Analysis is one of the most interesting we have seen in a while. Both components of the report improved, and consumers actually increased their savings rate, but none of that captured Atlas’ intrigue. Instead, inflation data stole the show.
First quarter 2018 economic output was more moderate than earlier estimates suggested according to the Final Revision to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Their latest calculation indicates an annualized growth rate of 2.0 percent, downwardly revised from 2.2 percent in the second tally and 2.3 percent in the initial estimate. In sum, output sl