Growing signs that price pressures are easing suggest that June’s distressingly high 9.1% increase in consumer prices will probably be the peak. But even if inflation indeed comes down, economists see a slow pace of decline.
Ed Hyman, chairman of Evercore ISI, pointed to many indicators that 9.1% might have been the top. Gasoline prices have fallen around 10% from their mid-June high point of $5.02 a gallon, according to AAA. Wheat futures prices have fallen by 37% since mid-May and corn futures prices are down 27% from mid-June. The cost of shipping goods from East Asia to the U.S. West Coast is 11.4% lower than a month ago, according to Xeneta, a Norway-based transportation-data and procurement firm.
