Week in Review: Apr. 8-12

Inflation, higher for longer, & more

Not a great week of economic data: inflation came in hotter than expected, small business owners are down in the dumps, and average mortgage rates are back to flirting with 7%.

The only person whose week was definitively worse was Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, who is charged with placing $183 million of losings sports bets with money stolen from his boss.

Monday

TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers

The number of passengers screened by TSA has fallen during the first week+ of April. I expected a bigger bump from the eclipse.

Tuesday

NFIB Small Business Optimism Index

This measure of small business owners’ optimism fell to the lowest level since 2012. Which, yes, means that small business owners are currently more pessimistic than they were in the middle of 2020.

This is a little baffling, but three potential (and highly speculative) explanations come to mind:

1. Economic conditions are about to deteriorate, and small businesses are seeing it first. I don’t think that’s the case but it’s not impossible.

2. The current economic environment is advantageous for big businesses, which can outbid small businesses for scarce workers and can survive off smaller profit margins, which are getting squeezed by inflation.

3. A majority of small business owners are republicans, and they felt better about the economy when their guy was in office (even if it was the worst months of the pandemic). To be clear, this isn’t a criticism of republicans. Democrats are no different in how the POTUS affects their perception of the economy, and this could reflect views of policy as much as politics. Either way, you can see how small business owner optimism surged around November 2016 and then plunged around November 2020.

Whatever the reason for the recent dip in sentiment, I think hard data is generally more informative than soft data in the current economic environment.

Gas Prices

Gas prices jumped to $3.71/gallon, the highest price in the past six months. Gas prices will probably continue to rise for the next month or two. This is normal and happens pretty much every spring.

Diesel Prices

Diesel prices increased to $4.06/gallon. That’s the highest price since the middle of February but still pretty cheap compared to most of 2023.

Wednesday

Consumer Price Index (Inflation)