A Review of the U.S. Inflation Landscape

It’s time to review the U.S. Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) landscape. In order to do that, our Chief Equity Strategist and Economist, John Blank, looks at six U.S. inflation measures, using Percent Change from a Year Ago. He’s here now to do just that.

1. First of all, what are the six inflation measures?

2. What are the key take aways from your review?

3. Is consumer price inflation on the rise? Can you adequately size up U.S. inflation without also looking at wholesale price inflation?

4. What do you say about the prospects of stagflation this year?

5. What about the prospects for a recession this year, or just a meaningful slowdown, given the tariff situation?

6. Do we need to see some good news regarding tariffs in order to see optimism on the U.S. economy, especially in the trade war with China?

7. Speaking of tariffs, Fed Chairman Powell said last Friday that the Fed will stand down on rate cuts because of them. What do you see that meaning for Fed policy this year?

8. Is there a way to tell how long it might be before economic uncertainty translates into a major decline in consumer confidence?

9. What does the global economic picture look like?

10. As far as stocks on your radar, you picked two major Japanese conglomerate stocks, and one U.S. financial firm. Sony (SONY), Hitachi (HTHIY) and CME Group (CME).

Our Chief Equity Strategist & Economist, John Blank, on inflation and more.
With John, I’m Terry Ruffolo.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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