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U.S. consumer price index rises 0.6% in July

Yahoo Finance’s Emily McCormick joins The First Trade with Alexis Christoforous to break down July's consumer price index.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: --take a look at inflation this morning, Emily, because we're getting new numbers out about inflation at the consumer level for the month of July. What can you tell us there?

EMILY MCCORMICK: Well, we did see inflation at the consumer level firming more than expected month over month and year over year for July. We saw the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, or CPI, rising at 6/10 of a percent in July to match June's pace of increase. Consensus economists had expected a deceleration to a 0.3% month-over-month gain. Now, gains were led by energy prices, which rose 2.5% after a 5.1% rise in June.

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But we also saw gains broad based. We saw medical care commodities, transportation services, and new and used vehicle prices also rising at the consumer level. Now, one category that did see consumer price declines was in the food index. That fell 4/10 of a percent in July month over month for its first decrease since April 2019. That was led by a 1.1% drop in prices for food at home mostly due to a drop in meat and poultry prices.

Now, excluding more volatile food and energy prices, we did see that core measure of consumer price index increasing 0.6% over last month, greater than the 2/10 of a percent rise that had been expected. So we are seeing consumer price inflation starting to firm a bit here after some weakness at the beginning of this year. Alexis?

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right. Emily McCormick, thanks so much.