The following is a summary of my post-CPI tweets. You can follow me @inflation_guy (or follow the tweets on the main page at http://mikeashton.wordpress.com)

• Core CPI +0.14%, close to rounding to +0.2%. An 0.2% would have caused a panic in TIPS, where there have been far more sellers recently.
• y/y core to 1.73%, again almost rounding to 1.8% versus 1.7% expected. This just barely qualifies as being "as expected", in other words.
• Core services fell to 2.4%, but core goods rose to -0.3% y/y.
• OER re-accelerated to 2.71% from 2.68% y/y. It will go higher.
• really interesting that core goods did not weaken MORE given dollar strength. $ strength is overplayed by inflation bears.
• Apparel went to 0.5% y/y from 0.0%. That's the category probably most sensitive directly to dollar movements b/c apparel is all overseas.
• Accel major groups: Food/Bev, Apparel, Recreation (24.1% of basket). Decel: Housing, Transp, Med Care, Educ/Comm (72.5%).
• Though note that in housing, Primary rents rose from 3.18% to 3.29%, and OER from 2.68% to 2.71%, so weakness is mostly household energy.
• That's a new high for primary rental inflation. Lodging away from home also went to new high, 5.04% y/y. But it's choppier.
• Airfares continued to decelerate, -3.01% from -2.71%. Ebola scares can't have helped that category, which most expected to rebound.
• But these days, airfares are very highly correlated to fuel prices (wasn't always the case). [ed note: see chart below]
• In Medical Care, pharmaceuticals rose to 3.08% from 2.72%. But the medical services pieces decelerated.
• Decel in med services is the surprise these days as the passage of the sequester cause positive base effects.
• The weakness in med services holds down core PCE, too. Median CPI continues to be a better measure as a result.
• College tuition and fees 3.36% from 3.32%. Still low compared to where it's been. Strong markets help colleges hold down tuitions.
• Core CPI ex-housing partly as a result of continued medical care weakness is down to a new low 0.877% from 0.911%.
• That continues to be the horse race: housing versus a wide variety of other things not inflating. Yet.

We may hear about how this CPI report shows that there is "still no inflation," but the simple fact is that the report was a little stronger-than-expected, that shelter inflation continues to accelerate with no end in sight, and that there was no large effect seen in core inflation from the strength of the dollar. The dollar has an evident effect on energy commodities, and a lesser effect on other commodities, but once you get to finished goods it takes a larger FX move or one longer in duration than the modest dollar rally we have had so far to cause meaningful movements in inflation.

The dollar's strength, reflecting in energy weakness, also shows up in some categories where we don't fully appreciate the link to energy. The airfares connection is always one of my favorites to show. Prior to 2004, there was basically no correlation between airfares and jet fuel prices (vertical part of the chart below). After 2004, the correlation went to basically 1.0 (see chart, source Enduring Investments).

The real conundrum in the CPI right now is the medical care piece. We always knew there would be difficulties in extracting what is really going on in medical care once Obamacare kicked in, because many of the costs of that program don't show up immediately as consumer costs. But the main effect in the data all last year was the effect of the sequester on Medicare payments, which pushed down Medical Care inflation from over 4% in mid-2012 to 2% in 2013. But as the sequester passed out of the data, Medical Care CPI rose to nearly 3% earlier this year...and then slipped, abruptly, back to the lows (see chart, source Bloomberg).

Is it possible that Obamacare is really restraining consumer inflation for medical care? Sure, it is possible. But there is far too much noise at this point to know what is happening in that component. And it really matters, because the overweighting of medical care and underweighting of housing in core PCE is the main reason that the Fed-favored price index shows 1.5% while median CPI is at 2.2%, within a snick of the highs since the crisis (see chart, source Bloomberg - note median CPI isn't out yet for September).

From a markets perspective, the TIPS market (and the commodities market, for that matter) have been pricing in a pernicious disinflation and/or deflationary pressure. It is simply not there. And so, even with a print that couldn't reach 0.2% on core, and even heading into a big auction tomorrow, inflation breakevens are rallying nicely, up 3.5-4.5bps across the board. Imagine what they would have done with a print that was a bona fide strong print!

You can follow me @inflation_guy!

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