Inflation cooled in October, but it’s just one month
The consumer price index is in, and it’s mildly good news. Prices in October were 7.7% higher than they were the previous October, which is terrible, but it’s the smallest increase in any month since January.
“We’re starting to see the initial signs of a slowdown in inflationary dynamics,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon.
Goods prices, not counting food and energy, fell four-tenths of a percent, “which is tied for the largest contraction outside of a recession since the early 1970s,” Daco said.
Yes, if you measure year over year, goods prices are still up 5%, but that’s a lot better than the 12% they were up earlier this year.
“I think we should take some comfort from the idea that the supply chain is healing, and healing quite rapidly,” said Eric Winograd, chief U.S. economist at AllianceBernstein.
Used car prices dropped sharply and have been falling consistently since July. Food prices are still rising, but more slowly than they have in months. The price of services, seasonally adjusted, actually fell in October.
On the other hand: “You never want to put too much weight on one month of inflation,” said Alan Detmeister, an economist and executive director at UBS. “A lot of people got really excited about the slowing back in March, a lot of people got excited about the slowing in July, and neither of those turned out to be a sustainable slowing.”
Detmeister said a lot of categories whose prices are driven by wages — think haircuts and restaurant prices — are not slowing down. That said, he’s optimistic that we’re past the inflation peak, finally.
This would mean the Federal Reserve could soften its interest rate hikes, said Joe Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“Another month like this would certainly support a slowdown to 50 basis points or even 25 pretty soon.”
Still, he said, on inflation, there’s a long way to go.
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