BofA fund manager survey
Here's a telling chart from the latest Bank of America fund manager survey. It shows increasing confidence that inflation is transitory, with the number of respondents up to 69%.
You can imagine that it would be even higher after this week's CPI but that doesn't mean they're all right. The shoe that's dropping at the moment is natural gas and energy pricing, which is going to hit hard.
A good point about energy, in particular, is that you use it now and pay later (unlike gasoline which is prepaid). That means a certain amount of sticker shock comes along with the bill.
A recent article highlighted this by pointing to a manufacturer in Pakistan who was struggling because of that lag. You sell the product before you realize you've priced it too low to make any money. At that point, you can't go back to the customer and say 'pay me more'.
This entire winter might end up like a bad credit card bill.
That said, European gas prices came off the boil today.
