February's Consumer Price Index (CPI) report saw inflation rise by 0.2% month-over-month and 2.8% year-over-year, as published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Wednesday morning, just below economist expectations of 0.3% monthly and 2.9% annual gains. Core CPI — which excludes food and energy prices — rose 0.2% monthly and 3.1% annually.
Brad Smith and Madison Mills dive into this key inflation report.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
Welcome to Yahoo! Finance's special coverage of the February CPI report. I'm Madison Mills alongside Brad Smith. The key CPI print crossing the wire right now. Let's get you those numbers. February CPI rising here for the year-over-year number actually coming in slightly below expectations at 2.8%. The estimate for the survey was 2.9%. Ex-food and energy year-over-year coming in at 3.1% just below the survey, which was 3.2%. Month-over-month also coming in just a touch soft at 0.2%. The estimate was 0.3%. And you also have ex-food and energy month-over-month coming in at just shy here at 0.2%, the survey data 0.3%. So again, giving you that year-over-year number coming in just shy of the estimate at 2.8%. And you can see the market responding and kind of lifting a bit off the back of this data here coming in indicating perhaps a little bit more softness than anticipated by the market Brad, when it comes to these inflation numbers, but nothing too much of a downward surprise here.
Yeah, some of the context in this report here as well. The shelter index, once again, really leading the majority of the move higher that we've seen accounting for nearly half of the monthly all items increase here, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Also going further here, this shelter increase, it was actually partially offset by a decrease of 4% decrease in the index for, get this, airline fares and a 1% decline in the index for gasoline. Uh, despite the decrease in gasoline index, they say the energy index actually rose two-tenths of a percent over the month. You also had some increases in electricity and natural gas, and then the index for food also increased in February. That was up by about two-tenths of a percent. So everybody out there stocking up your fridge, keeping the pantry filled, you're seeing just a little bit higher of prices. We'll break down kind of the um, different elements within that as well, but the food away from home index that also increased four-tenths of a percent. Um, food at home unchanged over the month though.
I I just wanted to quickly mention, Brad, because it we've been talking about how the labor market is sort of outpacing inflation when it comes to what the Fed is looking at in their dual mandate, and we did get real average weekly earnings in this print up six-tenths of a percent year-over-year and rising a tenth of a percent month-over-month in February. Both of those coming in slightly above estimates. So maybe that is a sign that we are seeing a little bit more strength when it comes to spending on the labor market, giving people those raises. That could be a sign that maybe the worst is behind us when it comes to those questions about the labor market, and that's certainly something we'll be posing to our guests today.
Yeah, as we mentioned, futures reacting positively on this report higher across the board. Now, we have had some deep declines here to start off the week, uh, in Monday and Tuesday. So we'll be watching for some of that rebound or that potential bounce here going into the start of today's trade as well.