PHILADELPHIA—Nationally syndicated host and biblical investing authority Dan Celia discusses the economic data this week.
“Well, one of the most interesting numbers of the week is going to be the NFIB business index number that is coming out for the month of April. I wish this were a May number. Obviously it is very backward looking, but it’ll be interesting to see what small businesses were thinking, headed into May. The other one coming out is consumer price index for April. It is already up six tenths of one percent, and it is likely to nudge up a little bit further.
Core inflation, I don’t care about. I’m not even going to give the number out, because it’s somewhat irrelevant. The only thing we care about is gasoline and food. Food prices are going through the roof this week, and that’s pretty much across the country. So the headline consumer price index is going to be an incredibly important number and give us some insights, but again, it’s an April number. Industrial production is another very important number. It was up 1.4 percent for March, so we’ll see if April can hold that number as well.
This is all important economic data. I’m very concerned about a number of issues, particularly regarding inflation and what the Federal Reserve is going to do about it. I said months ago, there is no way they’re going to be able to hold where they are right now. We will definitely see evidence of that by their September meeting, and before that they’ll be running things like higher interest rates up the flagpole.
Dan Celia discusses these and other global and economic headlines on his daily, three-hour “Financial Issues” program, heard on more than 660 radio stations and several television networks nationwide, including FISM.TV, viewed on several post-cable television platforms and online.
Read more about Celia, FISM and “Financial Issues” or visit the FISM website, its Facebook page, on YouTube at Financial Issues with Dan Celia or on Twitter @financialissues; download the FISM app here.
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