It’s been a rather eventful trading week this week — with both CPI and PPI results out, along with a bevy of Q1 earnings reports, among other things — but the market indices don’t have much to show for it. We were flat, flat, mixed and mixed over the past four sessions. So much for inflation metrics setting the tone one way or the other. The Dow is -0.70% over the past week, the Russell 2000 is -0.52%. The S&P 500 is +0.24% and the Nasdaq +1.18%.
This morning, we’re in positive territory ahead of the bell, and this is something that did not change upon the latest economic release: the Import Price Index for April. Headline month over month posted the strongest figure in almost a year, +0.4%, a big swing from the downwardly revised -0.8% the previous month and an improvement over the +0.3% expected. Subtracting volatile petrol (fuel) prices, this swings to -0.1%, still ahead of the downwardly revised -0.6% for March.
Year over year, Import Prices are down -4.8% — 20 basis points (bps) below the previous month’s tally, and the lowest print since the crater of the Covid epidemic in May 2020. We may attribute these numbers, much as we do other economic data, to further proof the Fed’s interest rate hikes over the past year-plus are having the desired effect of shrinking inflation. Yet imports rely on other countries, as well; perhaps these numbers are telling us global inflation is also coming down.
Export prices month over month came in +0.2%, in-line with estimates and as good as the headline figure in February of this year. Year over year, exports prices are down -5.9% — also the lowest since May 2020, and 40 bps smaller than consensus. The March read has been revised upward this morning, from -5.8% originally released to -5.2% now. Still, lower overall pricing helps deflate inflationary pressures, and they appear to be doing so with some moderation.
After the opening bell, Consumer Sentiment for May comes out, expected to dip a tad to 63.0 from 63.5 reported a month ago. It will be interesting to look into whether travel remains as high as it has been in recent months, and if there are signs consumers burning through their Covid-era savings are going to have some cooling effect on overall sentiment. And if so, whether that registers with the market, where we see the Dow +100 points at this hour, with the S&P and Nasdaq +10 points each.
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Import Prices Increased in April
It’s been a rather eventful trading week this week — with both CPI and PPI results out, along with a bevy of Q1 earnings reports, among other things — but the market indices don’t have much to show for it. We were flat, flat, mixed and mixed over the past four sessions. So much for inflation metrics setting the tone one way or the other. The Dow is -0.70% over the past week, the Russell 2000 is -0.52%. The S&P 500 is +0.24% and the Nasdaq +1.18%.
This morning, we’re in positive territory ahead of the bell, and this is something that did not change upon the latest economic release: the Import Price Index for April. Headline month over month posted the strongest figure in almost a year, +0.4%, a big swing from the downwardly revised -0.8% the previous month and an improvement over the +0.3% expected. Subtracting volatile petrol (fuel) prices, this swings to -0.1%, still ahead of the downwardly revised -0.6% for March.
Year over year, Import Prices are down -4.8% — 20 basis points (bps) below the previous month’s tally, and the lowest print since the crater of the Covid epidemic in May 2020. We may attribute these numbers, much as we do other economic data, to further proof the Fed’s interest rate hikes over the past year-plus are having the desired effect of shrinking inflation. Yet imports rely on other countries, as well; perhaps these numbers are telling us global inflation is also coming down.
Export prices month over month came in +0.2%, in-line with estimates and as good as the headline figure in February of this year. Year over year, exports prices are down -5.9% — also the lowest since May 2020, and 40 bps smaller than consensus. The March read has been revised upward this morning, from -5.8% originally released to -5.2% now. Still, lower overall pricing helps deflate inflationary pressures, and they appear to be doing so with some moderation.
After the opening bell, Consumer Sentiment for May comes out, expected to dip a tad to 63.0 from 63.5 reported a month ago. It will be interesting to look into whether travel remains as high as it has been in recent months, and if there are signs consumers burning through their Covid-era savings are going to have some cooling effect on overall sentiment. And if so, whether that registers with the market, where we see the Dow +100 points at this hour, with the S&P and Nasdaq +10 points each.