Consumer prices rose 3.5% from a year ago in March, more than expected
Source: CNBC
Published Wed, Apr 10 2024 8:31 AM EDT Updated 10 Min Ago
The consumer price index accelerated at a faster-than-expected pace in March, pushing inflation higher and likely dashing hopes that the Federal Reserve will be able to cut interest rates anytime soon.
The CPI, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the economy, rose 0.4% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 3.5%, or 0.3 percentage point higher than in February, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% gain and a 3.4% year-over-year level.
Excluding volatile food and energy components, core CPI also accelerated 0.4% on a monthly basis while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/10/cpi-inflation-march-2024-consumer-prices-rose-3point5percent-from-a-year-ago-in-march.html
Article updated.
Previous articles -
The consumer price index accelerated at a faster than expected pace in March, pushing inflation higher and likely keeping the Federal Reserve on hold with interest rates.
The CPI, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the economy, rose 0.4% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 3.5%, or 0.3 percentage point higher than in February. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% gain and a 3.4% year-over-year level.
Excluding volatile food and energy components, core CPI also accelerated 0.4% on a monthly basis while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared to respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%. Shelter and energy costs drove the increase on the all-items index.
Energy rose 1.1% after increasing 2.3% in February, while shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the weighting in the CPI, were higher by 0.4% on the month and up 5.7% from a year ago. Expectations for shelter-related costs to decelerate through the year have been central to the Fed's thesis that inflation will cool enough to allow for interest rate cuts.
The consumer price index increased at a faster than expected pace in March, indicating that inflation is staying stubbornly higher and likely keeping the Federal Reserve on hold with interest rates.
The CPI, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the economy, rose 0.4% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 3.5%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.3% gain and a 3.4% year-over-year level.
Excluding volatile food and energy components, core CPI also accelerated 0.4% on a monthly basis while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared to respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.7%.
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Original article -
The consumer price index in March was expected to increase 3.4% from a year ago, according to the Dow Jones consensus estimate.
This is breaking news. Please check back here for updates.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Wed Apr 10, 2024, 07:35 PM - Edit history (3)
I'll add some words later, but for now, the CORE CPI - which the Fed and most economists view as a better basis for projecting *FUTURE* inflation than the regular CPI. (The regular CPI aka "headline" CPI has all the components; the CORE CPI is that less food and energy because they are very volatile from month to month -- well energy certainly is). Anyway, if trying to figure out what the Fed might do, the core CPI is what they look at (actually the core PCE which came out at the end of March is what they put the most weight on). Blah blah
ETA: these are calculated from the actual index values, not from the rounded percent changes
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0L1E
ETA: The Regular aka Headline CPI
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0
ETA: CORE PCE through February that came out 3/29/24
CORE PCE: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCEPILFE
This is the one that the Fed weighs most heavily. The Fed weigh the PCE more heavily than the CPI. And in both cases, they weigh the CORE measures higher than the regular headline measures
ETA: Regular PCE through February that came out 3/29/24
PCE: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCEPI
ETA: Added links to the CORE PCE and the PCE data
ETA: Added link to the regular CPI.
This was apparently due to that "construction" boom underway. Of course it would have to wait for those multifamily dwellings to actually "become available" for supply/demand to kick in!
And it must be coming up on the season for the 3-bean salad!!!!
Once I found some "starter" cans, I bought them right away and put them in my pantry.
that they were saying average rent prices on new leases were falling. Not predicted to fall, but actually falling. But that it hasn't shown up in the CPI's shelter index yet because of lag effects. And every time I read a CPI report, it's shelter component is the biggest reason for core CPI and sometimes CPI increases. 
ETA: Clarified in above that rent prices were said to be lower on NEW leases, not overall.
It seems to have been happening in certain markets in some states but not others.
There is another interesting, but most likely longer-term thing going on and that is with all the vacant commercial/business offices that some municipalities are starting to convert to residences (often rental). That would eventually dump a whole pile of dwellings into the marketplace once they figure out a less expensive way to do those types of conversions.
And agree about "new leases" because my existing certainly didn't go down but shot up. 
But I did see "new" ones here are less than mine and did not go up.
So people can take their pick. Both unfortunately show a considerable upturn in inflation in 2024 so far (with the core number showing a rise since August 2023)
On a 12 months basis the core CPI (without energy and food) is up 3.8%, while the CPI is up 3.5%.
The latest 3 month average increase for the core CPI is 4.5% while for the CPI it is 4.6% (both numbers annualized). ETA: And the increase in March was the same 0.4% for both measures (actual not annualized).
Anyway, neither the Fed nor any economists that I've ever heard of say that the core is the better indicator for past or present inflation. Our living standards are much better reflected by the regular one than the core one (the core measure is irrelevant for that purpose).
What they are saying that as a basis for projecting FUTURE inflation, the core is the better measure to use for that. I agree with them and you don't and that's fine. People are free to assume that because energy (which bounces wildly up and down and up and down and -- since mid-December -- sharply up) is going to keep increasing at this rate indefinitely. I'm free to assume that too, but I don't.
If there was a way to forecast energy prices into the future -- that has a reasonably good track record -- then the Fed should be using that and including it. But apparently there isn't one that I've heard of.
Anyway, whether we like it or not, valid or not, the Fed adjusts interest rates based on projections based on core inflation. As an investor concerned about interest rates, I have to live with that reality.
I wish I had a 12 month graph on energy or oil prices handy, to match my 12 month graphs on inflation, but I don't. I have this 6 month graph -- that is posted every market day in Stock Market Watch in the Economy Group -- example: https://www.democraticunderground.com/111697799
and blame the Democrats because prices from February 2024 to March 2024 rose an "estimated" .4% and they are doing the Chicken Little routine because they had "estimated" it would be about .1% lower than that. No mention of the fact that these "estimates" are usually revised as more data comes in. But I'm sure we will see an interview in a cafe in Iowa where some person is horrified because his most recent $10 dollar purchase will cost him perhaps 4 pennies more. Oh the calamity!!
because they have nothing else. 
The guy from the Heritage Foundation had a picture of a battleship and a small statue of Pieta in the background for dissonance and a Russian flag in his jacket breast pocket.
Nice going dude!
The story came out three weeks ago.
Wed Apr 10, 2024: The Dept of Labor needs to answer for this:
Hat tip, TheProle
Link to tweet
Traders are closely watching once-obscure economic data, prompting more scrutiny of how widely the government distributes the information.
Share full article
Housing prices are being closely watched by traders of securities tied to inflation or interest rates. Josh Huskin for The New York Times
By Ben Casselman and Jeanna Smialek
March 19, 2024
One afternoon in late February, an employee at the Bureau of Labor Statistics sent an email about an obscure detail in the way the government calculates inflation — and set off an unlikely firestorm. ... Economists on Wall Street had spent two weeks puzzling over an unexpected jump in housing costs in the Consumer Price Index. Several had contacted the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces the numbers, to inquire. Now, an economist inside the bureau thought he had solved the mystery.
In an email addressed to “Super Users,” the economist explained a technical change in the calculation of the housing figures. Then, departing from the bureaucratic language typically used by statistical agencies, he added, “All of you searching for the source of the divergence have found it.”
To the inflation obsessives who received the email — and other forecasters who quickly heard about it — the implication was clear: The pop in housing prices in January might have been not a fluke but rather a result of a shift in methodology that could keep inflation elevated longer than economists and Federal Reserve officials had expected. That could, in turn, make the Fed more cautious about cutting interest rates.
“I nearly fell off my chair when I saw that,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, a forecasting firm. ... Huge swaths of Wall Street trade securities are tied to inflation or rates. But the universe of people receiving the email was tiny — about 50 people, the Bureau of Labor Statistics later said. ... In the minutes after it came out, analysts at investment banks, hedge funds and other asset managers scrambled to get a copy and to figure out how to trade on it.
{snip}
