This week the Labor Department will issue the CPI for January.  While there are many data points that market watchers, economists and the Federal Reserve look at when making forecasts, in political circles no figure has the weight of the CPI number.  Politicians and the press focus on the CPI as it is generally easy to understand and tends to reflect costs that many Americans are paying.  Complexity is not something politicians and the press do well, so the CPI number tends to be the “go to” inflation number.

At his post-meeting press conference and his various talks Chair Powell talks about the future Fed rate decisions being data driven; clearly the CPI because of its wide public role is a key data point.  The Fed’s Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) next meets on March 21/22.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the number tomorrow, Tuesday, at 8:30am.

Debt Ceiling

The need for Congress to increase the debt ceiling remains a market driving issue in Washington, and last week saw the President address the issue during his State of the Union address.

During the speech, there was an interesting back and forth on Social Security and Medicare where President Biden put the key political issue front and center.  The heckling from...

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