Sage Advice — Is Inflation Really This Tame?

September 1, 2004 — Inflation has always been at the forefront of the market’s consciousness and for good reason. Besides dictating real household spending power and real returns for investors, inflation plays a key role in monetary policy as maintaining price stability is one of the main objectives of the Federal Reserve. The focus on inflation indicators has been even greater the last year or so as market concerns have come full circle, from deflation concerns in early 2003 to worries about accelerating inflation in the second quarter of 2004. Much of the recent acceleration has been explained away as due to a spike in energy and food costs, which are stripped out of inflation indicators when reporting “core” inflation. Still there’s no denying we’ve seen a pick up in overall and core inflation over the last year, no matter which indicator you choose to look at.