by James Rickards
Daily Reckoning
The January inflation numbers came out this morning, and they weren’t good for Wall Street.
The consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.1% in January. That’s a decrease from December’s 3.4%, but it exceeded consensus estimates of 2.9%.
Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 3.9% on an annualized basis, which is unchanged from December. But the consensus estimate was 3.7%. Core inflation also rose at its highest rate since April 2023.
Here I want to make an important point about core inflation. From the point of view of everyday Americans, core inflation is nonsense.