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Finally, some good news: the growth rate of inflation is cooling off for now, and with the CPI inflation report being positive, the 10-year yield fell noticeably, and mortgage rates will fall with that! So, the question is, are we reaching the peak of inflation and close to the end of the Fed rate hike cycle? Let’s take a look at today’s data.

From the CPI report: The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose 0.4 percent in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, the same increase as in September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all-items index increased 7.7 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The estimates for the CPI inflation data were for 7.9% year-over-year growth. Some people in the markets had speculated that the data would come in even hotter than anticipated —some whisper numbers were for 8.2% – 8.4% year-over-year growth. This of course led some people to believe that bond yields and mortgage rates would go much higher today.

However, the report came in at 7.7% — lower even than the forecast. As a result, mortgage rates went from 7.37% yesterday to 6.67% as of this writing.

On Thursday morning, the 10-year yield had a big rally, and bond yields headed lower (see above) and mortgage rates will be below 7% today. What a difference a year makes — now we’re excited to see mortgage rates getting below 7%! But it makes sense when you consider that over the last 52 weeks, mortgage rates have ranged from 3.14% to 7.37%.

One of my talking points with inflation data is that the biggest driver of core inflation is shelter, and this data line lags. It lagged back in August 2020 when it was still down, and it’s crawling now on the CPI data.

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We already have more current data lines to show that the growth rate of inflation is cooling off. Some Federal Reserve members have commented on the fact that they know the shelter inflation data on the CPI lags — that’s a positive. Some people feared the Federal Reserve didn’t understand the lag in the CPI data, but this doesn’t appear to be the case.

So, we need to understand that the CPI shelter data lags, and the cooldown will be more of a 2023 story, especially in the second half of the year. Back in September, I went on CNBC before the CPI report came out to make this point and explain that shelter inflation did have legs to grow but the growth rate couldn’t be sustained.

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