Consumer Sentiment Falls, US May Have No Inflation Data for October

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Transcript

00:00We have some breaking economic data I see rolling across my ticker right now.

00:04University of Michigan, the final reading for October consumer sentiment falls to 53.6.

00:10The estimate was for 54.5.

00:13We have Michael McKee here with us on set, Bloomberg's international policy and economics correspondent.

00:19So is this a case where above 50 is expansion and below 50 is contraction?

00:24Yeah, although we're getting close to the line at this point with the headline number,

00:28the current conditions index falls to 58.6 from 61 and expectations drop to 50.3 from 51.2.

00:37So people getting closer to the idea that we may see some sort of slowdown ahead.

00:43It's not particularly good news, but it's not going to be outweighed by it's not going to outweigh the CPI.

00:49Speaking of inflation, the University of Michigan's one year ahead inflation index unchanged at 3.6 percent,

00:56while the five to 10 year number, which Fed officials look at more closely, 3.9 percent, up from 3.7 percent.

01:04So there are some longer term inflation questions out there.

01:08You wouldn't want to say that maybe we are at this point unanchored, but we're definitely seeing some concerns.

01:15And, of course, with CPI today, we got to 3 percent on both the headline and the core for the annual rate,

01:22which is not the 2 percent the Fed is looking for.

01:26It's only 50 percent above their target.

01:27It's only 50 percent above their target.

01:29That's 50 percent among friends.

01:30And, of course, the news that captured everybody's attention came out shortly after the CPI report

01:36with the White House sending out a tweet that suggested we will not get an October CPI report

01:43because it's too late now to collect the data.

01:45Now, the Bureau of Labor Statistics hasn't confirmed that, but that seems to be the view that we're now far enough into it

01:53that we won't get a report.

01:55And so the Fed is going to be flying blind when it comes to the December decision to make.