Today's CPI: Missed it by that much

Alright, I stuck my neck out yesterday and predicted that the core CPI numbers released today would show a decline of between -0.1 and -0.4 percent, based largely on the Fed minutes from last month. Well, the final tally is no change, although the exact amount was a decrease of -0.015 percent. That is virtually zero, but it was a decline. This just pushes the deflation watch forward another month. I still think that the core CPI is a bellwether as to whether the economy is responding to all the stimulus being poured in. And the previous three months do now rank as the biggest quarterly decline in prices since the late 1950s, and probably since the Great Depression. Stay tuned.