There were several notable releases this last week, with the largest being the PCE Index — the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation indicator. The PCE Index may be the more accurate indicator going forward, as data collection for the Consumer Price Index has been recently cut, thereby reducing its reliability. As expected, the inflation numbers have been steadily rising with the PCE Index, indicating that impacts from the tariffs are now filtering into prices for both producers and consumers.

As a follow up, Personal Income & Spending has had a light upturn after the initial panic with the tariffs. Lastly, the job numbers from last week have been unexpectedly weak, showing a slow down of the economy overall due to many factors.

Very little was released this week due to the major inflation data releases from the previous week. The Leading Economic Index was the most significant–and only–impactful release this week, showing a further decline in overall sentiment about the current economic situation. The majority of the decline was caused largely driven by expectations for business conditions. The decline was faster than expected, enough to warrant continued monitoring of the Leading Economic Index going forward.

While inflation has slowed down since the pandemic, it is showing a faster-than-expected rise for consumers, as the CPI (Consumer Price Index) has reported a higher than expected 0.3% increase, contrasted to the 0.2% expected increase.

Meanwhile, the PPI (Producer Price Index) has proven to be entirely flat, with the largest takeaway being that signs of tariff-related inflation are, at best, scattered among data reports, leading to many speculating that the impacts have been overestimated.

Given continued inflation for consumers, it is very unlikely the Federal Reserve will make any adjustments to the rate as it adopts a “wait-and-see” approach to the administration’s policies. Another noteworthy data release is retail sales, which has shown to snap back after the concerns about tariffs and widespread price increases have eased.

This was an extremely light release week with only the Consumer Credit Report. The amount of expected credit was expected to rise but only showed half the growth — a sign that things are still in stable condition. The most important reports will be featured with next week’s releases of inflation data in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Producer Price Index (PPI), as well as the Federal Reserve’s Beige book. The Trump Administration has also further extended the pauses on the tariffs which has been a welcome relief.