Goldman Sachs with their "bottom line" on the US inflation data, sounding like they want to convince themselves it'll all be ok ... but will it?

  • January core CPI rose 0.39%, 9bp above consensus expectations and compared to +0.28% in December. The year-on-year rate was unchanged at 3.9% compared to consensus of 3.7%.
  • The strength largely reflected start-of-year price increases for labor-reliant categories such as medical services, car insurance and repair, and daycare, and we assume inflation in these categories returns to the previous trend on net in February and March.
  • However, the large and persistent owners' equivalent rent category (OER) was also surprisingly strong, perhaps driven by the rebounding housing market.
  • Used car prices fell sharply, and we continue to expect further declines in February and later this year.
  • We tentatively expect core PCE prices rose 0.34% in January (mom sa). We will update our estimate after this week's import price and PPI data.
sweat

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ICYMI, the CPI data info: