Inflation is expected to continue to run hot in May, with energy, food, rent and health-care costs all going up, according to a new Dow Jones survey of economists.
Those surveyed expect the consumer price index will have risen 0.7% in May, up from 0.3% in April. Year over year that would produce an 8.3% rate. The CPI report will come out at 8:30 AM EST Friday.
According to the survey, it is expected there will be some cooling in core inflation, which excludes food and energy.
It is expected to rise .5%, or 5.9% year over year, compared to .6% in April, or 6.2% year over year.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics said, “It’s a very disquieting number. It’s going to re-energize concerns about has inflation peaked. I think we peaked. On a quarter basis, it was 8% in Q1.”
So far, year over year inflation has peaked at 8.5% in March.
Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo said she does not believe inflation has peaked, because so far oil has not peaked. She estimates headline CPI rose by 0.4% in May.
She said, “That’s what changed our view over the last few weeks. We’ve seen gasoline hit record levels. And naturally what’s prevented the peak from being behind us is what’s coming out of the energy sector.”
The market is presently obsessed with whether inflation has peaked or will continue to rise, as that will have a profound effect on the Federal Reserve’s policy going forward, and how aggressively interest rates rise going forward.
The Fed is widely expected to raise rates by a half point over each of the next two meetings, before assessing if additional more aggressive hikes may be necessary to tame the inflation rate. As of Thursday, the market was pricing in a 70% likelihood of an additional half point hike in September.
House went on, “The May CPI is likely to show the Fed is not getting any closer to price stability, and is in fact a little further away. It’s not peaking.” As for CPI, she expects it to remain at present levels for a few more months. “We’re not likely to see a meaningful deceleration in these numbers until the fall,” she said.
Aditya Bhave, senior U.S. and global economist at Bank of America says he thinks this is a peak, but that is not the end of the story. He continued, “On a year-over-year basis we peaked. We’re on the way down, but that’s not the point. From the Fed’s perspective, the point is where do we land?”
He expects to see headline inflation rising by 0.8% and core up 0.5%.
He said, “The headline is pushed by energy prices, by record high gas prices in May. For the core, we expect the increases to be pretty broad based. This is a trend we’ve seen over the last several months. The inflation story is no longer just a goods supply story. It’s much more broad across spending categories.”
Zandi meanwhile reiterated that inflation is related to oil prices, saying, “The good news on the inflation front is supply chains do feel like they’re starting to iron themselves out. There’s inventory everywhere. That should start reducing pressure on goods prices. Vehicle prices feel like they’re rolling over.”
