Falling Inflation, Retail Sales Bolster Fed’s Go-Slow Approach

“”Both reports would be arguments in a case that a dove would make for why the Fed needs to be more patient,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities LLC. “It’s a relatively soft consumer performance in the first quarter, and you couple that with a pretty abrupt halt in the gradual uptrend in inflation. If I were a dovish policy maker, I’d say ‘what’s the harm in holding off a little bit and seeing how all this plays out.””’ — Weirdly, this drop is a clearly-visible gradual rising trend since the last couple years… we have to wonder if it is some anomaly (or manipulation)….