Lately, all we seem to hear is that inflation is going up. 

With this thought in mind, let’s take a closer look at some recent inflation numbers. I just read an interesting article by Preston Caldwell (a Morningstar contributor), wherein he noted that inflation (notably the Consumer Price Index (CPI)) jumped 0.6% in March, 2021, and 0.8% in April, 2021.  Ostensibly, these large monthly jumps seem to imply inflation is coming down the pike.  Yet, when one looks a little deeper into the numbers, Preston noted that a lot of March’s and April’s monthly inflation jumps can be attributed to potentially transitory factors, such as: new/used car sales and food price inflation.  It seems probable that once the supply chain issues affecting these industries abates that some of these inflationary pressures will as well.   

Furthermore, housing/shelter has also greatly contributed to the CPI increasing over the last 10 months.  Although, the housing market is slated to stay relatively hot until 2022, price appreciation might mellow out a little bit by then when new construction catches up with demand. 

Additionally, Morningstar believes that current energy inflationary pressures have played themselves out and that energy prices should be relatively flat the next few years. 

Needless to say, economic forecasting can sometimes be more tea leaves and crystal balls than Intel i9 chipsets and Laplace Transform calculations because the future is notoriously hard to predict - pandemic anyone.  With that in mind, there are a multitude of other factors to consider, such as, an ever tightening labor market and the Federal Reserve’s policy mandate of letting inflation run a little hotter than 2% for the near future.  All other things being equal, this leads Morningstar and Preston to prognosticate that the 2021 inflation forecast for the Personal Consumption Expenditures index will increase by 2.9% (from a previous estimate of 2.3%). Certainly above the prior Feds 2% mandate, but nothing too terribly scary. 

Maybe a little inflation coming out of a pretty serious Gross Domestic Product slump, i.e., Q2 2020, is not too bad of a thing. And, if you believe the Fed, it might not be…as the old saying goes, “Don’t fight the Fed.”

If you have questions about your retirement plan or your investment portfolio in these interesting times, please feel free to contact Intelligent Investing at www.mynmfp.com/new-clients for a no-obligation consultation.