PCE SHOWS CONTINUING DEFLATION
31 May 2010 by Cullen Roche
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From the always informative David Rosenberg:
“For those who have ongoing problem with how the government treats the consumer price index, there is a metric that is tried, tested and true, which is the market-based core PCE price index (the core excludes food and energy). This metric was released yesterday and it eked a 0.3% QoQ annualized increase (basically flat) which was a record low for this particular data series. The YoY trend, depicted below, slowed to an 11-year low of 1.2% in Q1 from 1.7% in Q4 and 2.1% a year ago. The disinflation trend is unmistakable and augurs for income-based investment strategies.”

Source: Gluskin Sheff



There’s a raging debate on this one over at Rick Ackerman’s site. Rick is a longtime advocate of the deflation theory and the potential for subsequent hyperinflation:
http://www.rickackerman.com/2010/06/no-escaping-deflations-fatal-drag-on-financial-system/