Yesterday brought troubling news on the inflation front as the US CPI measure of inflation rose to 5.4%. Personally I was more bothered by the annual rise of 0.9% due to the problems at the moment with annual comparisons created by the Covid pandemic. That set something of an underlying theme for the UK release this morning so to any logical person it is rather curious to find this being reported by in this instance Ed Conway of Sky News.
UK CPI inflation rises above expectations again. Up to 2.5% in June.
If you had not be following the producer prices data we check each month you did get a clue from the US yesterday. It has different specific circumstances but broad trends for oil.food and other commodities will be in play.
Thus this was not really a surprise at all.
The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 2.5% in the 12 months to June 2021, up from 2.1% to May; on a monthly basis, CPI rose by 0.5% in June 2021, compared with a rise of 0.1% in June 2020.
We can break it down but the initial one helps a bit but as you can see whilst goods inflation is higher by the standards of this the gap is not large. However goods prices have seen a particular acceleration.
The CPI all goods index annual rate is 2.8%, up from 2.3% last month……The CPI all services index annual rate is 2.1%, up from 1.9% last month.
We can take that further although the official analysis is only for the similar CPIH as they try to force people to use their widely ignored favourite.
There were upward contributions to the change in the CPIH 12-month inflation rate from 9 of the 12 divisions, partially offset by a downward contribution from health.
So the move was fairly broad and we can specify it more.
The largest upward contribution (of 0.08 percentage points) to the change in the CPIH 12-month inflation rate came from transport, where prices rose by 1.3% between May and June 2021, compared with a rise of 0.5% between the same two months of 2020. The effect was principally from second-hand cars and motor fuels.
The second-hand car effect was something seen in the US where the unadjusted annual number was 45.2%. A lot of reliance was placed on the seasonal adjustment which reduced it to 10.5% as you can see by the difference in the numbers. The UK situation is not so different with second-hand cars seeing a monthly price rise of 4.4%. In terms of the technicalities they have reduced the weight by 20% which has proved convenient in keeping recorded inflation low but looks a clear mistake in hindsight.
Due to second-hand cars, where prices overall rose this year but fell a year ago. There are reports of prices rising as a result of increasing demand. This follows the end of the latest national lockdown and with some buyers turning to the used car market as a result of delays in the supply of new cars caused by the shortage of semiconductor chips used in their production.
That category was also impacted by rises in fuel prices of the order of 2.4 pence per litre which meant a 2% rise on the month for fuels.
Next come something rather troubling for those relying on seasonal adjustment.
A final, large, upward contribution (of 0.05 percentage points) came from clothing and footwear. Prices, overall, rose by 0.8% between May and June this year, compared with a fall of 0.1% between the same two months a year ago. Normally, prices fall between May and June as the summer sales season begins but the seasonal patterns have been influenced by the timing of lockdowns since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics which adjusted US used car prices so heavily may have an itchy collar when reading that.
The ongoing issue of how to treat prices in area’s which see heavy discounting or the same from going in and out of best-seller charts swung the other way this month.
The largest downward contribution of 0.06 percentage points came from games, toys and hobbies, where prices fell this year but rose a year ago, with the main effects coming from computer games and games consoles.
Also the rate of increase of prices for pills,lotions and potions has faded.
A partially offsetting, small downward contribution (of 0.03 percentage points) to the change in the CPIH 12-month inflation rate came from health. Prices of pharmaceutical products, other medical and therapeutic equipment rose by 0.8% between May and June 2021, compared with a larger rise of 3.1% between the same two months a year ago.
Tax Cuts
There have been some indirect tax cuts of which the largest has been the cuts to VAT. If you fully factor them in then the inflation episode is a fair bit larger.
The annual rate for CPI excluding indirect taxes, CPIY, is 4.2%, up from 3.8% last month.
No perhaps it will not all be passed through but even if you halve the impact you end up at 3.4%
Housing Costs
This has been a contentious issue for some time and the heat is not only on it is getting hotter all the time. Why? Well the official view is this.
The OOH component annual rate is 1.6%, up from 1.5% last month. ( OOH = Owner Occupiers Housing Costs)
I had to look that up because they quote all sorts of numbers to try to hide what is so obviously embarrassing. Even the man from Mars that Blondie sang about is probably aware that house prices are soaring and will be wondering how costs are only rising .
by that little? Especially when only 2 and and half hours later we are told this.
UK average house prices increased by 10.0% over the year to May 2021, up from 9.6% in April 2021.
So prices are up 10% but costs only by 1.6%! So what fell? Well mortgages are doing little so our official statisticians have to explain how their smoothed ( it is up to 16 months out of date) number for rents which do not exist impacts with reality.
After all how can you add soaring housing costs to the CPI at 2.5% and manage to then get 2.4% as CPIH does…..
I have regularly pointed out that this is an area of strength for the Retail Prices index or RPI and the reason why is shown below.
Annual rate +4.3%, up from +3.8% last month
It is picking up the rises that everyone can see much more accurately and let me specify that. It uses house prices via depreciation which is good but even it is handicapped by the smoothing process I described earlier and would change given the chance. If so it would give a higher reading right now and be a better measure.
Comment
I thought you might enjoy my perspective on the official inflation view..
The official inflation story
1. There wont be any
2. It will be transitory
3. It was above expectations
4. It is too late to do anything about it now.
Next there is the house price issue which if we put into the CPI measure at current weights would put it at 4%. Regular readers will have noted Andrew Baldwin commenting on this and so let me refine it. In reality if they let house prices in they will have the weights even though no brick is moved,window opened or door closed. But even if we so that we get to 3.2% and the Governor of the Bank of England is in the zone where he has to write an explanatory letter. That would be awkward as this afternoon the Bank of England will buy another £1.15 billion of UK bonds in an attempt to raise the inflation rate.
Looking ahead we see that whilst the shove is not as large as last month there still is a large one.
The headline rate of output prices showed positive growth of 4.3% on the year to June 2021, down from 4.4% in May 2021.
The headline rate of input prices showed positive growth of 9.1% on the year to June 2021, down from 10.4% in May 2021.
The monthly rise for output prices was 0.4% so the beat goes on. In terms of the input ones there was a 0.1% dip but this was mostly driven by the swings in oil so we need to check again next month.
Meanwhile is some action building in services inflation?
The annual rate of growth for the Services Producer Price Index (SPPI) showed positive growth of 2.0% in Quarter 2 (Apr to Jun) 2021, up from 1.3% in Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2021.