PPI started this week’s inflation releases with a report that relieved concerns about tariff-related price pressures whilst highlighting the volatile and revision-prone nature of the trade services category.
CPI then followed and was marginally stronger than expected on a M/M basis for both headline and core but with a more benign readthrough to core PCE – analyst estimates are tracking at ~0.20% M/M.
Underlying core goods inflation is still running at a robust monthly clip, as it has been since April when it stepped markedly higher, although its peak for now appears to have been in June.
With CPI inflation readings reasonable close to expectations, we believe the main driver of the dovish reaction was instead a spike in initial jobless claims with some paring of that move owing to a concentration in Texas.