When I ran for Fort Lauderdale City Commission in 2022, I recall my campaign advisors calling this time of year “silly season”. Silly rumors, silly ads, silly claims, silly rumors, pretty much most of it seemed silly given how serious of a position I was running for. I think the name of this publication “Keeping it Reel” becomes extra appropriate, especially once we get around silly season with just a little more than two months before election day.
In my last publication, I discussed a weakening economy and a resulting higher rate of disinflation – we had made significant progress in cooling off inflation. In this piece, I will continue to highlight this progress, however such progress does come at a cost. The most recent CPI print for June came at a decline of 0.1% from May, putting the 12-month rate at 3%, around the lowest in more than three years. Excluding food and energy costs (often volatile costs), the Core CPI increased 0.1% monthly, which is a 3.3% increase from one year ago. This was the smallest annual increase since April of 2021.
Earlier this year, I published an article titled “Bank Failures, Bond Rallies, Inflation Softening”. In that piece, I covered failures in a handful of banks mostly due to irresponsible management of their bond portfolios and a weak venture capital backdrop (many customers of the bank were VC). The result was essentially a bank run as these customers needed capital, and a panic ensued from lack of such capital that the bank could make available while they sold heavily discounted bonds off their balance sheets to return capital to depositors. Not exactly a recipe for success or risk management.