April 2021 CPI

[SlugSlinger]

Inflation numbers (CPI) are out. Don't listen to the media, look at the numbers being reported from the source, although these can be manipulated as well.

Column 3 is the change from April 2020 to April 2021. Column 6 is the changed from March 2021 to April 2021.

Energy is not included in the 4.2% increase that will be reported by the media. Energy is up 25%, but Gasoline is up 50%.

Used car prices are up 21%.

These are scary numbers.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm

 

[soonerwings]

Inflation numbers (CPI) are out. Don't listen to the media, look at the numbers being reported from the source, although these can be manipulated as well.

Column 3 is the change from April 2020 to April 2021. Column 6 is the changed from March 2021 to April 2021.

Energy is not included in the 4.2% increase that will be reported by the media. Energy is up 25%, but Gasoline is up 50%.

Used car prices are up 21%.

View attachment 205420

These are scary numbers.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm

Every Saturday morning on 94.7 (the brew) there's a syndicated radio show put on by a guy out of Dallas/Fort Worth named John Clay Wolfe. Besides being hilariously entertaining (my humor is warped), it's also fairly informative about the auto industry as Mr. Wolfe is the owner of givemethevin.com. His company sells somewhere around 600-700 cars per week at auto auctions. One of the things he's harped on a little over the last 5-6 months is that used cars cost more because of the supply chain shortages caused by the stoppage of new car production. All of a sudden, dealers were scrambling to buy used cars at auction just to fill their lots. Increased demand equates to higher costs. Stupid pandemic.

I have to wonder if there are any other weird numbers in there that are "fluke-ish" because of COVID.

 

[tRidiot]

These are 'unadjusted' numbers... can you give us an idea of what factors are used to come up with adjusted numbers, and why this is important over absolute numbers?


<edit> And yes, it is ****ing scary.

 

[Hodrod]

Inflation is not our friend....prepare for hard times ahead.

 

[trekrok]

Where is lumber? There's a commodities less food and energy, but that number doesn't seem to reflect lumber prices. Unless lumber was flattened by all the other commodities included?

 

[SlugSlinger]

These are 'unadjusted' numbers... can you give us an idea of what factors are used to come up with adjusted numbers, and why this is important over absolute numbers?


<edit> And yes, it is ****ing scary.

The seasonal adjustments would come in to play when comparing different seasonal changes. Like comparing May retail numbers to numbers around Christmas. There are known seasonal changes based on historical trending. "Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique that attempts to measure and remove the influences of predictable seasonal patterns to reveal change from month to month."

Comparing year over year numbers, would not be impacted by trended seasonal adjustments. However, monthly trended changes would be impacted by seasonal changes.

This looks at March 2021 to April 2021 changes and month over month changes for 2021. The March 2021 to April 2021 unadjusted vs seasonally adjusted changes are similar for the most part. Compare column 6 with column 9. This also points out that the adjusted changes are ramping up, except for energy. Wait until we see May's CPI numbers. Those may blow us out of the water.

 

[SlugSlinger]

Where is lumber? There's a commodities less food and energy, but that number doesn't seem to reflect lumber prices. Unless lumber was flattened by all the other commodities included?

Producer Price Index. April 2021 wasn't available yet. And the 2021 PPIs are preliminary.

 

[tRidiot]

Oh my goodness, a lot of those look pretty crazy.