The highlight of the US economic data in the October 7 week will be the consumer price index (CPI) for September at 8:30 ET on Thursday. The report is expected to provide more evidence that upward price pressures continued to abate at the all-items level and are moving sustainably toward the Fed’s 2 percent inflation target. However, it will be the index excluding food and energy that will get more attention. Fed policymakers are still keeping a close eye on non-housing services and shelter costs as less responsive to restrictive monetary policy intended to curb inflation, whereas commodities prices have eased considerably more as supply chains are back to normal conditions.
The CPI data closes out the third quarter 2024 and will allow the cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) for social security payments in 2025 to be calculated. Based on the available data for July and August, the COLA is expected to be around 2.4 percent. Unless there is an unexpectedly big move in the CPI-W in September, that should be close to the final adjustment.
The minutes of the September 17-18 FOMC meeting are set for publication at 14:00 ET on Wednesday. These should illuminate if there was more disagreement among FOMC participants about the size of the rate cut that was appropriate. The vote at the meeting was 11-1 with a dissent from Governor Michelle Bowman who favored a smaller 25 basis point cut. However, Bowman may have had support among the nonvoters at the meeting. The minutes should reflect the easing bias that was visible in the quarterly forecasts in the summary of economic projections. However, the minutes are three weeks old and will not take into account the impacts of a lengthening strike by 33,000 Boeing workers, a new strike of 45,000 dockworkers along the US East and Gulf coasts, and the impacts of widespread devastation by Hurricane Helene which made landfall on September 25 and cut a swathe through the Southeast.
