Prices
Inflation, read the way its builders do — CPI, PCE, PPI, and the detail tables.
July CPI made it two soft core readings in a row: core rose 0.2% (2.5% over 12 months, the smallest since February) and is running 1.6% annualized over three months. The deceleration sits outside shelter — everything except food, shelter, and energy is up 1.9% over the year — while owners' equivalent rent holds at a 3.2% pace. The level problem is now PCE's: core PCE 3.3% in June against core CPI's 2.5%.
- August 26, 2026 Investment Fees Were Half of July's Core PCE; Without Them It Is 3.0 Percent PCE
Half of July's 0.246 percent core PCE increase came from investment-management fees, which are billed against client assets and reprice off the prior quarter's stock market. The same line carried 42 percent of last July's increase. Strip it out and core still runs 3.0 percent over 12 months, more than a point above the Fed's objective — and BEA changes how it prices the line on September 30.
- August 13, 2026 The Producer Core's Annual Rate Fell to 4.7 Percent; Its Three-Month Pace Is 5.1 PPI
Producer core inflation's 12-month rate fell to 4.7 percent from 5.0, but its three-month pace is 5.1 percent annualized — the annual figure is catching down to a run rate that has not moved as much. Freight is about 0.25 points of the 0.35-point annual decline, and half of freight's own slowdown is a strong July 2025 leaving the window.
- August 12, 2026 Core Inflation Slowed to 2.5 Percent; Rents Have Not Slowed Since January CPI
Core CPI rose 0.2 percent in July and 2.5 percent over 12 months, the smallest rise since February. The rent measures took no part in it: owners' equivalent rent rose 0.26 percent, a 3.2 percent pace identical to its 12-month rate, and has held between 3.1 and 3.3 percent every month since January. Shelter printed 0.14 percent only because lodging fell 2.8 percent — a line BLS reports with a 1.6-point standard error.
- July 30, 2026 Core PCE Slowed to 0.1% the Morning After Three Fed Officials Voted to Hike PCE
Core PCE rose 0.1% in June — the softest month since March 2025 — and the 3-month annualized rate fell below 3% for the first time since December, the morning after three FOMC members voted to hike. The cooling survives stripping the volatile financial-services swing, but even at June's pace the 12-month rate is still about 3% in September — cooler, but still about 3 percent into fall.
- July 15, 2026 Freight and Exports Carry a Third of Producer Core Inflation PPI
Producer prices fell 0.3% in June as the spring oil spike reversed through every stage of goods production, confirming June CPI. Producer core inflation held at 5.1%, but freight and exports are 19% of that core and 37% of its inflation — BLS's consumer-only version runs 4.8%. The distributor margins May's note called a buffer compressed hard in May, expanded in June, and are up 3.3% over the year.
- July 14, 2026 The Oil Shock Reversed Without Reaching Core Inflation CPI
June CPI fell 0.4% — energy did essentially all of it, reversing the spring oil spike — and the passthrough into core inflation that May hinted at never came. Core prices were unchanged on the month, their softest since 2021.
- July 6, 2026 Services Price Pressure Eased to a Four-Month Low — With No Slump in Activity ISM
June ISM services: activity held at 54.0 (a 13th straight month of expansion), services employment expanded for the first time in four months, and the prices index fell to 67.7 — its first reading below 70 since February. The bad combination would have been slowing activity with firm prices; June delivered steady activity and cooling costs. Both ISM cost gauges are now cooling, and July 14's CPI tests whether that reaches consumers.
- July 1, 2026 Factory Cost Pressure Is Fading — the Fed's Problem Is Services, Not Goods ISM
June ISM manufacturing held in expansion at 53.3, but the big move is the prices index — down 9.1 points to 73 as June's oil spike unwinds. That's real disinflation, and it's entirely goods. It doesn't reach the services core (PCE 3.4%) that keeps rates high — which Fed Chair Warsh reaffirmed in Sintra the same morning.
- June 25, 2026 The Fed's Inflation Gauge Now Runs Above CPI — It Counts More Health Care PCE
Core PCE hit 3.4% — highest since October 2023 — and now runs above core CPI, inverting the usual relationship. It's the weighting — PCE counts far more health care than CPI, and that's where the inflation sits.
- June 11, 2026 Producer Prices Are Up 6.5 Percent and Haven't Reached Consumers Yet PPI
May producer prices show upstream cost pressure building — a record monthly jump in goods and supercore at a four-year high — held out of consumer prices only by shrinking distributor margins.
- June 10, 2026 The Second Inflation Wave Is, So Far, an Oil Shock CPI
May CPI ran above forecast, but more than 60% was energy — so far a war-driven oil shock sitting on a core that hasn't broken out.