Inflation Sits at 8.2% as Core Prices Hit Four-Decade High
Kanebridge News
    HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $1,581,977 (+0.10%)       Melbourne $970,512 (+0.23%)       Brisbane $885,023 (+0.03%)       Adelaide $813,016 (+0.20%)       Perth $760,003 (-0.11%)       Hobart $733,438 (-1.28%)       Darwin $643,022 (-0.79%)       Canberra $970,902 (+1.87%)       National $1,000,350 (+0.23%)                UNIT MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $721,725 (+0.37%)       Melbourne $488,237 (-0.76%)       Brisbane $495,283 (+1.37%)       Adelaide $404,022 (-2.77%)       Perth $405,420 (-0.69%)       Hobart $498,278 (-1.60%)       Darwin $339,700 (-0.58%)       Canberra $480,910 (-0.04%)       National $502,695 (-0.26%)                HOUSES FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 10,626 (-230)       Melbourne 15,220 (+56)       Brisbane 8,417 (-24)       Adelaide 2,720 (-9)       Perth 6,897 (+56)       Hobart 1,234 (+5)       Darwin 281 (+5)       Canberra 1,079 (-30)       National 46,474 (-171)                UNITS FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 8,563 (-253)       Melbourne 8,007 (-12)       Brisbane 1,824 (-34)       Adelaide 493 (-16)       Perth 1,902 (-1)       Hobart 176 (+4)       Darwin 388 (-7)       Canberra 858 (+2)       National 22,211 (-317)                HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $775 (-$5)       Melbourne $570 ($0)       Brisbane $600 ($0)       Adelaide $580 (+$10)       Perth $625 (-$5)       Hobart $550 ($0)       Darwin $690 (-$10)       Canberra $680 ($0)       National $642 (-$2)                UNIT MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $730 ($0)       Melbourne $550 ($0)       Brisbane $625 ($0)       Adelaide $460 (+$10)       Perth $580 (+$5)       Hobart $460 (+$10)       Darwin $550 ($0)       Canberra $560 (-$5)       National $576 (+$2)                HOUSES FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 5,654 (+231)       Melbourne 5,764 (+128)       Brisbane 4,271 (-9)       Adelaide 1,259 (+101)       Perth 1,944 (+50)       Hobart 337 (-36)       Darwin 168 (+19)       Canberra 647 (+18)       National 20,044 (+502)                UNITS FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 9,121 (+505)       Melbourne 6,022 (+34)       Brisbane 2,066 (+18)       Adelaide 366 (+1)       Perth 600 (-5)       Hobart 138 (-17)       Darwin 306 (+12)       Canberra 736 (+20)       National 19,355 (+568)                HOUSE ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND         Sydney 2.55% (↓)       Melbourne 3.05% (↓)       Brisbane 3.53% (↓)     Adelaide 3.71% (↑)        Perth 4.28% (↓)     Hobart 3.90% (↑)        Darwin 5.58% (↓)       Canberra 3.64% (↓)       National 3.34% (↓)            UNIT ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND         Sydney 5.26% (↓)     Melbourne 5.86% (↑)        Brisbane 6.56% (↓)     Adelaide 5.92% (↑)      Perth 7.44% (↑)      Hobart 4.80% (↑)      Darwin 8.42% (↑)        Canberra 6.06% (↓)     National 5.96% (↑)             HOUSE RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND       Sydney 0.7% (↑)      Melbourne 0.8% (↑)      Brisbane 0.4% (↑)      Adelaide 0.4% (↑)      Perth 1.2% (↑)      Hobart 0.6% (↑)      Darwin 1.1% (↑)      Canberra 0.7% (↑)      National 0.7% (↑)             UNIT RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND       Sydney 0.9% (↑)      Melbourne 1.4% (↑)      Brisbane 0.7% (↑)      Adelaide 0.3% (↑)      Perth 0.4% (↑)      Hobart 1.5% (↑)      Darwin 0.8% (↑)      Canberra 1.3% (↑)      National 0.9% (↑)             AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL HOUSES AND TREND       Sydney 28.0 (↑)      Melbourne 29.2 (↑)        Brisbane 30.6 (↓)       Adelaide 23.8 (↓)     Perth 34.2 (↑)      Hobart 29.4 (↑)      Darwin 39.9 (↑)      Canberra 28.2 (↑)      National 30.4 (↑)             AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL UNITS AND TREND       Sydney 29.4 (↑)      Melbourne 29.6 (↑)        Brisbane 30.3 (↓)       Adelaide 22.5 (↓)       Perth 39.2 (↓)     Hobart 26.1 (↑)        Darwin 36.1 (↓)     Canberra 34.4 (↑)        National 31.0 (↓)           
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Inflation Sits at 8.2% as Core Prices Hit Four-Decade High

Consumer-price index’s rise eased slightly in September but core index marked biggest increase since 1982

By GWYNN GUILFORD
Fri, Oct 14, 2022 8:46amGrey Clock 4 min

U.S. consumer inflation excluding energy and food accelerated to a new four-decade high in September, a sign that strong and broad price pressures are persisting.

The Labor Department on Thursday said that its so-called core consumer-price index—which excludes volatile energy and food prices—rose 6.6% in September from a year earlier, the biggest increase since August 1982. The measure increased 6.3% in August.

The inflation report likely keeps the Federal Reserve on track to increase interest rates by 0.75 percentage point at its meeting next month. It also raises the risk officials will delay an anticipated slowdown in the pace of rate rises after that or signal that they are likely to raise rates to even higher levels early next year than previously anticipated by policy makers and investors.

U.S. stocks fell in early trading before recovering. Treasury yields rose.

Prices rose last month for housing, medical care, airline fares and other services, threatening to keep inflation high for a while.

Investors and policy makers follow core inflation closely as a reflection of broad, underlying inflation and as a predictor of future inflation. On a monthly basis, the core CPI rose 0.6% in September, the same as in August, and up from 0.3% in July.

“Inflation has built up a lot of momentum over the last year,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “That’s going to keep inflation higher than the Federal Reserve wants it for at least a couple more months—if not a couple more quarters.”

The overall CPI increased 8.2% in September from the same month a year ago, pulled down by a drop in gasoline prices that was partially offset by higher food costs. The reading was down from 8.3% in August and 9.1% in June, which was the highest inflation rate in four decades. The CPI measures what consumers pay for goods and services.

Housing costs rose by the most since the early 1980s, as a strong labour market continues to push up rental rates. The housing-cost indexes make up two-fifths of the core index and tend to move slowly, since the leases that they are based on are typically negotiated once a year. That lag means housing costs could keep core CPI high for months, even though private-sector rent measures are declining.

Core services prices, which tend to persist once they start rising, rose at a one-month annualised rate of 9.9%, the sharpest rate since 1982. Prices for motor vehicle repair services rose 2.2% in September from the prior month. Veterinary services and daycare and preschool increased 2% last month

Mr. Adams said those figures reflected “the ripple effects of price shocks over the last year broadening across the economy.”

The Social Security Administration separately said Thursday that Social Security benefits would increase by 8.7% in 2023. The boost, calculated from a different version of the September CPI, is the highest in four decades.

The increase will translate to a sizeable income increase for around 70 million people, compared with workers who aren’t seeing wage growth that keeps pace with inflation, said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING.

Mr. Knightly said the benefits increase could put slight pressure on inflation next year.

Inflation accelerated last year as the U.S. economy recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. Prices rose as strong consumer demand—stoked by lower interest rates and government stimulus—collided with constrained supply chains and pandemic-related shortages. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year further spurred inflation worldwide, hitting food, energy and other commodity prices.

The U.S. growth outlook has dimmed, and the higher interest rates are stoking fears of a recession. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of spending on goods and services, fell at an annual rate of 1.1% in the first half of the year, adjusted for inflation and seasonality.

The Fed is aggressively raising interest rates to slow price increases. Officials at the Fed’s September policy meeting expressed concern about the persistence of high inflation, minutes published this week showed.

Officials last month raised the benchmark federal-funds rate by 0.75 percentage point—their fifth increase since March—bringing it to a range between 3% and 3.25%, the most rapid pace of rate increases since the early 1980s.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in late September that the central bank would continue to lift interest rates and keep them high until it is certain that inflation has been tamed. Nearly all Fed officials expect to raise their benchmark interest rate to between 4% and 4.5% by the end of this year, according to September projections.

“You don’t get inflation like this without a lot of things going wrong,” said Michael Gapen, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America. “Maybe the bumper sticker is: It’s not just up to the Fed to bring inflation down. We expect help from other areas including global commodity markets and a reversal in the relative shock to core goods prices.”

A deceleration in price increases for autos, furniture and other goods is key to putting inflation on a steady downtrend, Mr. Gapen said. There are signs that pressures created by supply-chain disruptions could be subsiding, helped by a consumer shift from spending on goods to services. Prices for core consumer goods remained flat from August to September as well, in part due to a drop in used-auto prices.

Food prices have continued to climb. Grocery prices increased 13% from a year ago in September, buoyed in part by a 30.5% surge in prices for eggs and a 24.2% increase in those for flour and mixes.

Kristin Curreri of Arlington, Mass., said high inflation is making it hard to manage finances since she got married in May 2021. She and her husband expanded their wedding guest list and increased their budget after Covid-related restrictions eased, leading to a credit-card balance.

“Inflation wasn’t something people were paying attention to at that point,” she said. “This was the first gathering people got to go to in a year, so I thought, ‘Well, let’s pay a little more and carry a little debt that I’ll then pay off.’”

Then prices started shooting up, with higher food costs particularly punishing. While Ms. Curreri said she has cut back on more-expensive items including organic chicken, she estimates that her overall grocery bill has gone up around 30% since 2021.

“With the cost of living having increased so much, I’ve basically been carrying a rolling four grand that I just can’t get rid of,” she said, referring to her credit-card balance.



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The Embarrassment of Having to Explain Your ‘Monster’ Diamond Ring

Couples find that lab-grown diamonds make it cheaper to get engaged or upgrade to a bigger ring. But there are rocky moments.

By ALINA DIZIK
Mon, Dec 11, 2023 4 min

Wedding planner Sterling Boulet has some advice for brides-to-be regarding lab-grown diamonds, which cost a fraction of the natural ones.

“If you’re trying to get your man to propose, they’ll propose faster if you offer this as an option,” says Boulet, of Raleigh, N.C. Recently, she adds, a friend’s fiancé “thanked me the next three times I saw him” for telling him about the cheaper lab-made option.

Man-made diamonds are catching on, despite some lingering stigma. This year was the first time that sales of lab-made and natural mined loose diamonds, primarily used as center stones in engagement rings, were split evenly, according to data from Tenoris, a jewellery and diamond trend-analytics company.

The rise of lab-made stones, however, is bringing up quirks alongside the perks. Now that blingier engagement rings—above two or three carats—are more affordable, more people are dealing with the peculiarities of wearing rather large rocks.

An engagement ring made with a lab-grown diamond at Ada Diamonds in New York City. PHOTO: CAM POLLACK/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Esther Hare, a 5-foot-11-inch former triathlete, sought out a 4.5-carat lab-made oval-shaped diamond to fit her larger hands as a part of her vow renewal in Hawaii last year. It was a far cry from the half-carat ring her husband proposed with more than 25 years ago and the 1.5-carat upgrade they purchased 10 years ago. Hare, 50, who lives in San Jose, Calif., and works in high tech, chose a $40,000 lab-made diamond because “it’s nuts” to have to spend $100,000 on a natural stone. “It had to be big—that was my vision,” she says.

But the size of the ring has made it less practical at times. She doesn’t wear it for athletic training and swaps in her wedding band instead. And she is careful to leave it at home when traveling. “A lot of times I won’t take it on vacation because it’s just a monster,” she says.

The average retail price for a one-carat lab-made loose diamond decreased to $1,426 this year from $3,039 in 2020, according to the Tenoris data. Similar-sized loose natural diamonds cost $5,426 this year, compared with $4,943 in 2020.

Lab-made diamonds have essentially the same chemical makeup as natural ones, and look the same, unless viewed through sophisticated equipment that gauges the characteristics of emitted light.

At Ritani, an online jewellery retailer, lab-made diamond sales make up about 70% of the diamonds sold, up from roughly 30% two years ago, says Juliet Gomes, head of customer service at the company, based in White Plains, N.Y.

Ritani sometimes records videos of the lab-diamonds pinging when exposed to a “diamond tester,” a tool that judges authenticity, to show customers that the man-made rocks behave the same as natural ones. We definitely have some deep conversations with them,” Gomes says.

Not all gem dealers are rolling with these stones.

Philadelphia jeweller Steven Singer only stocks the natural stuff in his store and is planning a February campaign to give about 1,000 one-carat lab-made diamonds away free to prove they are “worthless.” Anyone can sign up online and get one in the mail; even shipping is free. “I’m not selling Frankensteins that were built in a lab,” Singer says.

Some brides are turned off by the larger bling now allowed by the lower prices.When her now-husband proposed with a two-carat lab-grown engagement ring, Tiffany Buchert, 40, was excited about the prospect of marriage—but not about the size of the diamond, which she says struck her as “costume jewellery-ish.”

“I said yes in the moment, of course, I didn’t want it to be weird,” says the physician assistant from West Chester, Pa.

But within weeks, she says, she fessed up, telling her fiancé: “I think I hate this ring.”

The couple returned it and then bought a one-carat natural diamond for more than double the price.

Couples find that lab-grown diamonds have made it more affordable to get engaged. PHOTO: CAM POLLACK/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

When Boulet, the wedding planner in Raleigh, got engaged herself, she was over the moon when her fiancé proposed with a 2.3 carat lab-made diamond ring. “It’s very shiny, we were almost worried it was too shiny and was going to look fake,” she says.

It doesn’t, which presents another issue—looking like someone who really shelled out for jewellery. Boulet will occasionally volunteer that her diamond ring came from a lab.

“I don’t want people to think I’m putting on airs, or trying to be flashier than I am,” she says.

For Daniel Teoh, a 36-year-old software engineer outside of Detroit, buying a cheaper lab-made diamond for his fiancée meant extra room in his $30,000 ring budget.

Instead of a bigger ring, he got her something they could both enjoy. During a walk while on an annual ski trip to South Lake Tahoe, Calif., Teoh popped the question and handed his now-wife a handmade wooden box that included a 2.5-carat lab-made diamond ring—and a car key.

She put on the ring, celebrated with both of their sisters and a friend, who was the unofficial photographer of the happy event, and then they drove back to the house. There, she saw a 1965 Mustang GT coupe in Wimbledon white with red stripes and a bow on top.

Looking back, Teoh says, it was still the diamond that made the big first impression.

“It wasn’t until like 15 minutes later she was like ‘so, what’s with this key?’” he adds.

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