Explosive Week in Review
Oil prices, inflation, housing, & more
The multi-state cyclosporiasis outbreak, the one that has given thousands of Americans week-long bouts of extreme gastrointestinal distress, has now been linked to Taco Bell’s lettuce supplier.
If it seems like it took longer than usual to pinpoint the source of this outbreak, that could be because last year’s workforce reductions caused the CDC to reduce the number of foodborne pathogens they track from eight to two.
Unlike cyclospora-caused diarrhea, this week’s economic data releases weren’t particularly explosive, though we still got a cool inflation report, a slew of downbeat housing data, and more.
Monday
Oil Stuff
Well, oil prices are rising again, back above $80/barrel as the on-again, off-again, blocked-again, opened-again Strait situation in Iran resumes. No surprise that gas and diesel prices are once again rising too.
The takeaway here is that a lot of data from June (when oil prices were back below $70/barrel) that came out this week is now largely irrelevant, so, that’s fun.
TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers
Air travel slipped even farther behind year-ago levels this past week, according to TSA gate check numbers data. It continues to be a disappointing summer travel season.
Tuesday
Consumer Price Index (Inflation)
Consumer prices fell for the first time in two years in June. A decline was expected—oil and gas prices dropped sharply during the second half of the month—but the fall was even larger than expected.
That has a lot to do with core (not food or energy) goods prices, which have now fallen in two consecutive months. Prices for apparel, vehicles, medicine, and computers (more on that below) all fell for the month. What do those categories have in common? They were broadly exposed to tariffs, which have since diminished since the Supreme Court IEEPA ruling back in February.
Which is to say, it looks like tariff pass-through on core goods may be waning.
This is all great, with the enormous caveat that oil prices have rebounded in July. If that increase hangs around, expect a similar rebound in the next CPI data release.
NOTE ON THE CPI FOR COMPUTERS: Actual computer prices have blasted off, but the BLS makes quality adjustments to changes in computer prices differently than it does for most items. The short of it is that while the CPI for computers shows prices down 0.8% year over year, that’s an abnormally small decrease and actual computer prices are rising quickly.
Sunshine Protection Act
The House overwhelmingly passed a White House-backed bill to make daylight saving time permanent.
On the one hand, this is what the people want. Only 12% of people favor the current system of changing the clocks, according to this 2025 survey.
On the other hand, we tried this in the 1970s, and people hated it so much that we reverted back to changing the clocks. Under permanent DST, some parts of the country will get post-9AM sunrises.
It remains to be seen if the Senate will pass this.
NFIB Small Business Optimism Index
Small business optimism improved in June, but that was—you guessed it—largely due to lower oil prices. We’ll see how optimism holds up if oil prices hold on to the recent rebound throughout July.
