Economic Numbers -- December 12, 2024

Locator: 48389INFLATION.

My favorite chart:

• ICI MMFs: link here.
• OFR MMFs (my favorite chart): link here.

PPI: double the estimate -- 0.4% vs 0.2% estimate; stripping out food and energy, exactly in line at 0.2%.  Otherwise, everything "hotter" than expected. Not good. Market turns negative. By noon, traders will forget these numbers, but this will give Steve Liesman something to talk about.

Meanwhile, this reminder:

The CNBC panel on the PPI, starting with Steve Liesman:

• these numbers are "hot";
• but Fed still on track to cut in December (this month) and in March of next year
• core numbers better than headline numbers
• big jump in food prices
• "finished consumer foods" jumped 31% -- Liesman wondered out loud if that was a misprint / typographical error -- everything else was in the 3% range
• "finished consumer foots"? Fruits and vegetables?
• everything suggests the Fed is talking 2% but "secretly" acknowledges the reset will be 3%;
• still better than the alternative(s)
• still a Goldilocks economy
• proposed tariffs will add 0.3% to the inflation rate (e.g., from 2.7% to 3.0%). 
  

Used cars: why did prices of used cars spike yesterday? Due to hurricane and all the cars that were flooded out.

**********************************
Disclaimer
Brief Reminder 

• I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.
• I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
• See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 
• Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.
  
• If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 
• Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.
• I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
• And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution.
  
• Longer version here.