Market briefing --- Mate (slow)
>> we’re back. consumer spending fell in june for the first time in nine months. americans cut back on purchases due to higher fuel prices and slower income growth. personal spending down .7% month on month, that was more than expected. june caps the weakest for the for consumer spending since the 2001 recession. personal income was up in june, less than expected and below the recent trend. consumer spending accounts per more than 2/3 of the u.s. economy. as job growth resumes, economists expect spending to pick up. the june measure of inflation watched by the federal reserve was unchanged from a month ago, installing a pause―nalagy a pause in recent price trends, signaling a pause. the commerce department’s core personal consumption expenditures index is the topic today and joining us is tom keene, our editor at large.
>> one of the reasons this is followed is it’s alan greenspan’s favorite measurement of overall inflation. what we saw today was a sigh of relief as the fears of the number ballooning up haven’t come to fruition when you take out food and energy. if we can turn to the chart, you can get a long-term picture. what’s great about this chart, the mathematicians say it’s elegant. the three blue circle, the one-year moving average, the green line, touching up perfectly against the one-year moving average and we’re just below that now. we haven’t gone to an excessive level of what has been a long-term structural trend to declining price change.
>> this is 25 years’ worth, putting that into context.
>> correct.
>> what does today’s data say about this measured federal reserve?
>> it says that there may be rate hikes. most people are looking for an august rate hike and talk of a possible pause in september but certainly the immediacy is not there from most economists we talk to for a 50-basis point jump or that panic of going to 2% or 3%.
>> i put up the price, the personal spending number, the monthly chart here. it’s a volatile number. the annualized number shows a 5.3% gain from a year ago, personal spending up. does that matter?
>> it’s just lumpy, very, very lumpy. we saw auto sales this afternoon doing much better than june. most of the consumption data, experts are telling us, they look at more three months and one-year data because as you see on this chart, it goes back and forth.
>> didn’t get time to get to nomar, out of time. thank you very much. we turn now to world and national news. british police have arrested 13 suspected terrorists in nationwide raids and mark crumpton tracking that story and more and joins us now with details.
