美国的通胀就快下来了？
今年的核心通胀率一直居高不下，但分析师认为有两大理由可以改善，首先是周三公布的6月份消费者价格指数（CPI）。
乐观的第一个理由来自于租金增长的放缓。住房占核心CPI的40%，占美联储首选指标——个人消费支出价格指数的近20%。在过去的两年里，组建家庭的热潮使租金急剧上涨。但这种繁荣已经放缓，新公寓的供应量已经达到了40年来的最高水平。
政府价格指数中的住房成本既包括租房者支付给房东的费用，也包括房主为租房所支付的费用。他们的建造方式意味着他们落后于最新的租金变动长达一年。由于租金增长在一年前开始大幅放缓，直到现在才反映到通胀指标中。
例如，5月份CPI中的住房成本较上年同期上涨了近8%。但是，由Apartment List维护的全国租金在6月与去年同期持平，低于2022年6月14%和2021年6月9%的同比增长。
前美联储经济学家里卡多·特雷齐（Riccardo Trezzi）表示：“六个月前，我们真的不确定房地产市场的通缩速度会有多快，但我们最近才了解到，它将急剧减速。”特雷齐目前经营着总部位于日内瓦的咨询公司Underground Inflation。
乐观的第二个原因是二手车价格将会下降。这一点很重要，因为美联储官员一直指望商品价格的下降来抵消服务成本的上升。在流感大流行之前，商品通胀通常是持平或负值（即通缩）。
但是，不包括食品和能源的商品价格在#年上涨了2%。芝加哥联邦储备银行总裁古尔斯比上月接受采访时称，“令人困惑的是，为何商品价格没有进一步下滑.”
瑞士联合银行（United Bank of Switzerland）经济学家艾伦·德迈斯特（Alan Detmeister）说，原因是二手车价格在疫情期间飙升，一年前开始下降，但在4月和5月又出现了上涨。德迈斯特曾负责美联储的工资和物价部门。
二手车掉头
分析师认为，随着新车产量的反弹，二手车价格将进一步下跌。在流感大流行之前，经销商的库存大约可维持85至88天的供应量。根据Cox Automotive的数据，去年的最低工资为35天，但今年5月上升到了55天。销售激励措施虽然低于大流行前的水平，但正在增加。
Core inflation has proven stubborn this year, but analysts see two big reasons for improvement, beginning with Wednesday’s report on the June consumer-price index.
The first reason for optimism comes from a slowdown in rent growth. Housing accounts for 40% of the core CPI and almost 20% of the Fed’s preferred gauge, the personal-consumption expenditures price index. A boom in household formation had driven up rents sharply in the past two years. But that boom has slowed and the supply of new apartment units has hit a 40-year high.
Housing costs in government price indexes include both what renters pay their landlord and what homeowners would pay to rent the home they live in. The way they are constructed means they lag behind the latest movements in rent by up to a year. Because rent growth began slowing sharply one year ago, it is only now filtering into inflation measures.
For example, the cost of shelter in the CPI was up nearly 8% in May from a year earlier. But a measure of national rents maintained by Apartment List was unchanged from a year ago in June, down from year-over-year increases of 14% in June 2022 and 9% in June 2021.
“We weren’t really sure six months ago how fast the disinflation in the housing markets could be, but it is something we have learned pretty recently is going to decelerate sharply,” said Riccardo Trezzi, a former Fed economist who runs Geneva-based Underlying Inflation, a consulting firm.
The second reason for optimism is that used-car prices are set to fall. This is important because Fed officials have been counting on falling prices for goods to offset higher service costs. Before the pandemic, goods inflation was usually flat or negative (i.e., deflation).
But prices of goods, excluding food and energy, were up 2% in May. “The puzzle has been why haven’t goods prices come down even more,” Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said in an interview last month.
The reason is that used-car prices, which soared during the pandemic and began to decline one year ago, increased in April and May, said Alan Detmeister, an economist at UBS who used to run the Fed’s wages and prices section.
Used car U-turn
Analysts think used-car prices will decline more as the production of new cars has rebounded. Before the pandemic, dealers had around 85 to 88 days’ worth of supply on their lots. It fell to as low as 35 days last year but moved up to 55 days in May, according to Cox Automotive. Sales incentives, though below prepandemic levels, are on the rise.