March 13, 2026 – February CPI came in at 2.4%. This was around the consensus and in the middle of my projected range. 3-month inflation is 3.3% and 6-month inflation is 1.7%. This brackets the annual rate.
My data expects CPI to be 2.3%-2.5% in the next report. I think that is reasonable with the odds being more towards the high end.
Now that the tariffs argument is pushing up daisies, the inflation mongers get to grab on to high oil prices. Although transportation is a significant cost, I don’t think it will translate to a huge inflation bump. But, I would expect some increase this Summer. It takes 45-120 days for oil to get shipped around to various places in the world. So, any tick up in CPI due to current oil prices won’t occur for 4-6 months. The futures market is pricing oil in 6 months at pre-conflict prices. Something will happen. It just won’t be huge.
FED FUNDS RATE – The market has the Fed Funds Rate priced at 3.7%. It is set at 3.75%-4.0%. No change at the next meeting looks likely. In fact, the market has changed to not expecting any rate cuts this year! A side note, the 30-year rate is about to hit 5% again.
FUTURIST TIDBIT – For those that read to the end, I will provide a tidbit of information about how quickly we are advancing down the AI highway. The company OSMO has digitized smell. We first digitized sight. Then we digitized sound. Now, it is smell. I guess one day the other senses will be digitized. When I look at everything, I am amazed that we are simply a world of 1s and 0s. Every picture. Every video. Every sound. Simply consist of 1s and 0s. Think about that. Now you can add smell to that list:)
I’ll briefly mention a second tidbit as I have not dug deeper into this event. Standford University has successfully created energy in space and transferred it to Earth. Ultimately, besides fission and/or fusion, this will lead to unlimited cheap to free electricity worldwide. Elon Musk has said he will need to use space for the amount of electricity his companies will need. When OpenAI alone will use more electricity than all of India, you see the need for new ways to create power. Space with its cold temp is ideal. More in future posts.
As one of my 1980s bands sang – the future is so bright, I have to wear shades:)
Shalom,
The Mann