Morning Report: Inflation continues to moderate

Vital Statistics:

Stocks are higher as earnings continue to come in. Bonds and MBS are down.

Global bond yields shot higher overnight after the Bank of Japan tweaked the language in its policy statement which hinted at policy normalization. This caused the yield on the Japanese Government Bond to shoot higher by 11 basis points (from 0.44% to 0.55%) which caused global bond yields to spike higher. As a general rule, global government bonds do correlate with each other, so this pushed yields higher.

Personal Incomes rose 0.3% month-over-month in June, according to BEA. Personal consumption rose 0.5%. The PCE Price Index, which is the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, rose 0.2% month-over-month and 3% year-over-year. Excluding food and energy, it rose 0.2% MOM and 4.1% YOY.

Here is the long-term chart of the annual change in the PCE Price Index excluding food and energy, which is the focus for the Fed:

Lower energy prices (they fell 19% YOY) pushed down the headline number to 3%, but the ex-food and energy number is still elevated. June 2022 was the peak of the housing market, and that will help to push down the monthly numbers going forward. The next Fed meeting in September 19-20, so we will have a lot of data to chew through before that meeting.

The employment cost index rose 1% in the quarter ending June 30, and 4.5% for the past 12 months. It rose at 5.1% for the year ending in June 2022, so we are seeing wage growth decelerate.

Pennymac reported that volumes rose 9% to $24.9 billion in Q2. This was down 7% on a YOY basis. Overall margins improved, but elevated interest rate volatility pushed up hedging costs.

Consumer sentiment improved markedly in July, according to the University of Michigan. “Consumer sentiment rose for the second straight month, soaring 11% above June and reaching its most favorable reading since October 2021. All components of the index improved considerably, led by a 18% surge in long-term business conditions and 14% increase in short-run business conditions. Overall, the sharp rise in sentiment was largely attributable to the continued slowdown in inflation along with stability in labor markets.”

Year-ahead inflationary expectations increased from 3.3% to 3.4%. Long-term inflationary expectations were stuck at 3%.

16 Responses

  1. Interesting comparison between Hunter Biden’s treatment versus Dinesh D’Souza for the same crime.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/technofog/p/a-tale-of-two-plea-deals?r=ft7ne&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

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  2. Dying in the current health care system is complicated and expensive. For those who don’t have long term care insurance, I recommend it.

    My dad was recently diagnosed with terminal stage 4 esophageal cancer, so we are dealing with all the intricacies of hospice care, supplemental care, and Medicare.

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    • So sorry J, that’s awful. My prayers to your father, you and your family.

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    • I’m very sorry .
      I know what you’re talking about. my wife and mom were both recently diagnossed with breast cancer. they’ll be fine. but it’s not going to be eay.. and it helps to have the name of a systgem CEO in your phone.

      if you have any payment/polcy questions, let me know.

      [haven’t been around much b/c of those diagnoses]

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      • Awful Nova, my prayers to you wife and mom. I sell Oncology Biosimilars and am familiar with oncology practices overall and most are VERY good at helping patients navigate. It is really surprising how compassionate these practices are considering the dollar volume flowing through them. Or, perhaps I should say it isn’t surprising as the high dollar volume is really revealed preference.

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        • Friend of mine is in oncology sales too. Works for Astellas for bladder cancer.

          https://www.astellas.com/us/

          Before that she was with J&J and Novo Nordisk for several years.

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        • I work for Viatris and prior to that for Pfizer. I’ve been in the oncology space now for about 7 years. I spent time in virtually every specialty there is with the exception of cardiology. Oncology pays the best but plastic surg / aesthetic derm is the most fun by far.

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      • Sorry to hear that NoVA. I think we have figured out where Medicare stops and the long term care starts.

        It is screwed up when the hospice service is much more efficient and responsive than the oncologists.

        They kept doing more and more tests and screenings until it got too late to treat. And to enroll in any of the clinical trials there’s more screenings and you have to go on site to the facility which he can’t do now.

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        • oh i’m sorry. we’ve had a good experience with the nurse navigators here.

          and it doesn’t hurt that I’ve got a Rolodex full of members who deal with this day to to day. i just copied and dumped onto google drive my wife’s MRI, CTs, scans, lab results, and physician notes — her whole record – and shared it with a few oncologists who logged in from home. totally back-channeled it.

          they all independently confirmed the treatment plan and were able to give me enough feedback to ask intelligent questions of her oncologist and surgeon.

          my mom on the other hand. I’ll need to figure out how to get my dad to STFU for 5 seconds to get any information.

          I can’t imagine navigating this on your own. i’m very sorry

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        • That’s screwed up on the Oncologist’s part, no doubt about it.

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        • I tried some back channels too. Part of the problem is that they originally misdiagnosed his liver biopsy as a different type of cancer (adenocarcinoma) than the primary one in the esophagus which is squamous cell carcinoma and were going to have to do some sort of combination chemo treatment. They later realized it was the same cancer and could be treated with one chemo drug.

          What I didn’t understand is why they just didn’t start the radiation treatment ASAP while they figured out the chemo plan.

          Our nurse navigator was good too. My own feeling is that it was the protocols, not the people. They seemed unwilling to start any treatment until they were ready to treat all of it and the outpatient scheduling was based on weeks, not days. And of course the oncology board meeting to review the case.

          When he was finally admitted to the hospital after he couldn’t walk anymore and thus couldn’t do outpatient treatment, they did manage to complete all the outstanding tests and start radiation treatment within 48 hours.

          Had they done that earlier when he was first diagnosed after an endoscopy, it might have made the difference. It was over 30 days from original diagnoses until the first radiation treatment.

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  3. For you George:

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