Markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading. The gauge measures services inflation excluding food, energy and housing and has been roaring higher lately, up 4.8% year over year in March and more than 8% at a 3-month annualized pace.
The picture is more complicated because some of the most stubborn components of services inflation are household necessities like car and housing insurance as well as property taxes. A hotter-than-expected consumer price index reading rattled markets Wednesday, but markets are buzzing about an even more specific prices gauge contained within the data — the so-called supercore inflation reading. Along with the overall inflation measure, economists also look at the core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, to find the true trend. The supercore gauge, which also excludes shelter and rent costs from its services reading, takes it even a step further. Fed officials say it is useful in the current climate as they see elevated housing inflation as a temporary problem and not as good a gauge of underlying prices.Sign up for NBC LA newsletters. Tom Fitzpatrick, managing director of global market insights at R.J. O'Brien & Associates, said if you take the readings of the last three months and annualize them, you're looking at a supercore inflation rate of more than 8%, far from the Federal Reserve's 2% goa