Below is a summary (and extension) of my post-CPI tweets today. You can follow me @inflation_guy.

• CPI +0.3%/+0.1% with y/y core figure dropping to 1.9%. That will be only by a couple hundredths on rounding, but it's still a decline.
• Looks like core was 0.129% rounded to 3 decimal places. y/y went from 1.956% to 1.933% so a marginal decline.
• RT of Bloomberg Markets @themoneygame: Consumer Price Changes By Item http://read.bi/1nx0sUf
• Core goods still -0.2%, core services still +2.7%, unchanged from last month. [ed note: I reversed these initially; corrected here]
• All of this a mild miss for the Street, which was looking for +0.19% or so, but I though the Street was more likely low.
• Major groups accel: Apparel, Recreation, Educ/Comm, Other (19.7%). Decel: Food/Bev, Transp, Med Care (38.9%), Housing flat.
• There's your real story. Recent drivers: medical care, which is a base effect and oddly reversed. That's temporary. Also>>
• >>big fall in non-rental/OER parts of housing: insurance, lodging away from home, appliances. Those are not as persistent as rents.
• Primary rents went to 3.153% from 3.058%; OER unch at 2.640% from 2.638%. The rest will mean-revert.
• College tuition and fes at 4.142% from 4.001%.
• 60.5% of all low-level categories accelerating (down from 70.5%). Still broad but not as broad.
• Actually looks like Median CPI could downtick today.

This is why I try very hard to resist the urge to forecast the monthly CPI, and admonish investors (and even traders) to resist trading on the data. Chairman Yellen is right about this: the data are noisy, so one month can be almost anywhere. This month, there was a reversal in the recent rise in y/y medical care inflation. But that rise was due to base effects, which aren't going away, so forecasting medical care inflation to continue to accelerate is more a statement of mathematical likelihood than it is an economic forecast. And it's all the more surprising then when it reverses.

This month's figure makes it a fair bit harder for my forecast of near-3% for 2014 on core or median inflation to come to pass, although it bears noting that median inflation (even though it may downtick later today) is still within striking distance. Since median is currently the better measure, and will be for much of this year, I won't back off my forecast yet. Another weak month, though, would cause me to ratchet down the target simply because it becomes harder to hit as time becomes shorter.

However, I expect several months this year will exceed +0.3% on core inflation. And it is worth remembering that core inflation faces easy year-ago comparisons for the rest of the year. In July of last year, the seasonally-adjusted m/m core inflation figure was +0.167%; in August it was +0.138%; in September it was 0.132%; in October +0.124%; in November +0.175%; and in December +0.101%. So, even if core inflation only averages +0.2% for the rest of the year, core will still be at 2.3% by year-end. If core inflation averages what it has been for the last four months, we'll be at 2.4%. What that means is that (a) my forecast of something near 3% doesn't represent a massive acceleration, although we only have half a year to get there, and (b) anyone forecasting less than 2.3% by year-end is actually forecasting a deceleration in inflation from recent trends.

The breadth indicators also took a mild breather this month, with the proportion of the CPI that is accelerating (looking at low-level categories) dropping to around 60% from around 70% in May. As with the other analysis, however, we should be careful not to read too much into one month since this figure also jumps around a lot. Interestingly, the proportion of categories where the year-on-year change is at least 2 standard deviations above zero - so that we can reject the 'deflation' meme for these categories - is basically unchanged from last month at 24%. As the chart below shows, we last saw a level this high in 2006, which is also the last time that core CPI ran at 3%.

Housing inflation is now back below my model's projections, inflation breadth is still high, and the persistent parts of CPI are maintaining their levels or advancing while a few of the skittish parts are retreating (or at least not yet converging to the mean). There is nothing here to indicate that the three months of accelerating core CPI were the aberration; in fact to me it appears that the June figure was the aberration. That question will be answered over the balance of the year. In the meantime, inflation markets remain priced at levels so low that even if you're wrong in betting on higher inflation, you don't lose much but if you're right, you do very well. In my view (although admittedly I may be biased), most investors remain significantly underweight protection against this particular risk.

You can follow me @inflation_guy!

Enduring Investments is a registered investment adviser that specializes in solving inflation-related problems. Fill out the contact form at http://www.EnduringInvestments.com/contact and we will send you our latest Quarterly Inflation Outlook. And if you make sure to put your physical mailing address in the "comment" section of the contact form, we will also send you a copy of Michael Ashton's book "Maestro, My Ass!"