It’s tempting to dismiss the response to Tuesday’s inflation data as an outsized reaction to a slight miss in numbers that are particularly vulnerable to seasonal noise. Yet the development is also indicative of deeper issues whose influence may well be with us for the next few months and quarters.
Consumer prices rose in January by more than expected for both the headline and core measures, over a monthly and annual horizon. While this clearly constituted “data misses,” they were small deviations from consensus projections that could well have reflected seasonal dynamics. Still, the media and market reactions were considerable.
Yields on US government bonds surged across the curve, ending the day more than 10 basis points higher. The dollar appreciated while all the major stock indexes slumped by more than 1%. This triggered considerable media coverage, including an above-the-fold front-page Wall Street Journal article declaring “Inflation Clouds Rate-Cut Path.”
Rather than call all this an over-reaction, investors should focus on the three important signals in this monthly release.
First, the data misses are forcing greater attention from both market participants and economists on the stickiness of inflation in the services sector. An important subset of prices here – dubbed supercore – advanced by the most in nearly two years. This is an area where a notable deceleration in price increases is needed for the Federal Reserve to attain its inflation target of a sustainable 2%. And the slowing must come before some of the current outright deflation in the goods sector runs out of steam.
Second, the data serves as a reminder that the services sector continues to be less sensitive to higher borrowing costs. This is particularly problematic for a marketplace that had been betting on aggressive and early interest-rate cuts by the Fed. It is also a signal that the “last mile” dynamics of the battle against inflation could well get more complicated in the months ahead.
Third, economists are again being forced to confront the tricky analytical issue of the level of the neutral rate of interest. Even more controversial and operationally complicated is the question of what constitutes the best inflation target for an economy that has pivoted from last decade’s insufficient aggregate demand to this decade’s insufficiently flexible aggregate supply.
All three issues will remain with us in the months ahead. As such, and notwithstanding valid seasonality-related considerations, we should resist the temptation to dismiss the market and media reactions as a “storm in a teacup.” Instead, we should see the reactions as a wake-up call for traders, investors, and economists who had embraced, with too little critical thinking, the narrative of a quasi-automatic, very soft landing that opens the door for large and early Fed rate cuts.
Mohamed A. El-Erian is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief executive officer of Pimco, he is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge; chief economic adviser at Allianz SE; and chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He is author of “The Only Game in Town.”