<story><title>U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%</title><url>https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_08102022.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>radioactivist</author><text>So the year over year CPI increase each month this year (starting from January) was 7.5%, 7.9%, 8.5%, 8.3%, 8.6%, 9.1%, 8.5%. So this value has been jumping around a bit as it has been going up. This drop is being taken as good news -- but I worry whether this is really a meaningful drop or whether we are just over interpreting what could be a fundamentally noisy metric?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kqr</author><text>This is what statistical process control charts were invented to tell us: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;static.loop54.com&amp;#x2F;XmR.html?baseline=7.5,7.9,8.5,8.3,8.6,9.1&amp;amp;values=8.5&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;static.loop54.com&amp;#x2F;XmR.html?baseline=7.5,7.9,8.5,8.3,...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nope, last number is well within the limits set by the variation of the previous numbers. Depending on how sensitive you feel like being to false alarms, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t even say there&amp;#x27;s been a clear trend this year.&lt;p&gt;If you detrend it by successive differences we see that the slope is very close to zero compared to variation: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;static.loop54.com&amp;#x2F;XmR.html?baseline=0.4,0.6,-0.2,0.3,0.5&amp;amp;values=-0.6&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;static.loop54.com&amp;#x2F;XmR.html?baseline=0.4,0.6,-0.2,0.3...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, the last number is close to a control limit, so if this continues next month we may have a signal!</text></comment>
<story><title>U.S. annual inflation rate drops to 8.5%</title><url>https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_08102022.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>radioactivist</author><text>So the year over year CPI increase each month this year (starting from January) was 7.5%, 7.9%, 8.5%, 8.3%, 8.6%, 9.1%, 8.5%. So this value has been jumping around a bit as it has been going up. This drop is being taken as good news -- but I worry whether this is really a meaningful drop or whether we are just over interpreting what could be a fundamentally noisy metric?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>randomdata</author><text>Corn seems to be a good leading indicator here[1]. Cash bids were $4 in 2019, $5 in 2020, $6 in 2021, $7 at the start of 2022, $9 when the war in Ukraine broke out, down to $8 in June, and now at $7.50 where it has remained stable at since the beginning of July. Which suggests that things are indeed slowing.&lt;p&gt;[1] Which likely ends up being a proxy for oil, but as a farmer I watch food commodities much more closely.</text></comment>