Last winter, I bought some pork butt to smoke at $1.09 a pound.
This week I saw some at $3.85 a pound.
I couldn't even afford an estimate on Rib Eye Steaks!!!
My clients are selling their homes in 2 or three days for cash at elevated prices, often in bidding wars.
But....Maybe some relief is coming?
Lumber erases all 2021 gains deflation is the risk to watch, says Bloomberg Intelligence
At the time of writing, lumber for September delivery was down 6.1% on the day
Lumber's recent dramatic drop erased all the year-to-date gains.
The pandemic boost is unlikely to be sustained if timber prices and history are guides.
And it is not just lumber. Soybeans are also giving back their 2021 gains, and copper is on the decline as well.
Even Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell highlighted the temporary surge in commodities such as lumber as evidence that inflation will be "transitory."
"The problem right now is that the demand is very strong, and incomes are high," Powell said in June. "If you look behind the headline numbers, you'll see that the incoming data are consistent with the view that prices that are driving that higher inflation is from categories that are being directly affected by the recovery from the pandemic and the reopening of the economy."
Powell drew parallels between the transitory inflation and the temporary surge in lumber prices.
"Over time, these things driving up inflation will be temporary … The experience with lumber prices is illustrative of this. Prices that have moved up really quickly because of the shortages and bottlenecks should stop going up. And in some cases should actually go down. And we did see that in the case of lumber," he said. "Our expectation is that these high inflation readings that we're seeing now will start to abate. And it'll be like the lumber experience."
Edited by Rogerdodger, 14 July 2021 - 10:51 PM.
