What’s Driving the CPI

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 28, 9:50AM EDT · Published Mar 21, 3:13AM EDT

From Ticker Sense

While we wait over the next two days for the Fed’s ultimate decision regarding interest rates and the wording of their statement, we thought we would share the following chart which summarizes one of the key factors policy-makers will be considering over the next two days- inflation.

Over the last seven years, overall prices as measured by the CPI have risen about 21%. Of that gain, the cost of shelter is responsible for over 40%, followed by transportation and food and beverages, with each comprising about 14% of the total gain.

On the plus side, the fact that real estate prices are flat-lining (or in some cases falling) and energy prices have been declining bodes well for the inflation outlook in the shelter and transportation components. On the negative side, the rising prices for food and beverages are probably on the minds of Fed governors as a red flag.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.