Deflation: What Investors Need to Know
A rapid drop in increase may help shoppers’ dollars go further, but it’s a disturbing run for investors
By Ben Steverman
Forget inflation for now. Prices are falling on almost everything, including shares.
Investors need to adjust to a new reality: A few months ago, swelling was a top worry, especially the impact of sky-high fuel prices. Now, although consumers can celebrate falling prices at the gas pump, investors’ worry is exactly the opposite.
Instead of inflation, the problem is deflation, a downward drift in prices that could crowd corporate profits and investor returns to uncomfortable levels.
PPI Posts Record DeclineOn Nov. 18, a government report showed an unexpectedly large 1% least bit in the October consumer price index, including an 8.6% plunge in energy prices last month. Excluding energy and food, the CPI fell 0.1%, the earliest drop in the so-called "core" index since 1982.
On Nov. 17, the producer excellence index, a measure of wholesale prices, fell 2.8% in October, including a 12.8% fall in energy prices. That was the largest decline in the PPI in the rumor’s 61-year history.
After a fast rise in prices in early 2008, consumer prices are still up 3.7% in the past time year, though that’s down from a 4.9% annual increase in September.
Economy Facing "Extreme Stress"Economists saying the late reward declines do help consumers (BusinessWeek.com, 11/19/08).
However, rampant deflation is also a sign of the extreme stress the dispensation is under not crooked at once. "Clearly, demand is down worldwide," says Brian Levitt, economist at OppenheimerFunds (OPY).
Falling prices—with regard to the sake of everything from commodities to airline tickets to apparel—are a sign of how much economic activity has slowed. For example, consumer energy prices are off 43.1% in the past three months. In October alone, airfares dropped 4.8%, and vesture prices dropped 1%.
Deflation Can Be DestructiveIn a sign of manufacturing’s weakness, John Ryding of RDQ Economics points out that bite case-harden prices have fallen from a high of $523 per ton in August to $144 by ton last week.
Falling prices aren’cheek by jowl just a indication of economic weakness, they’re also extirpative in and of themselves. "A deflation worm is in all probability the biggest exposure to harm to the economy," Levitt says.
As demand declines and prices fall, companies cut employment and investment, slowing relating to housekeeping growth even further.
