Alina Castellanos
Alina covers the US economy for US Market Current — inflation prints, labor market data, consumer credit, and the Federal Reserve's reaction function.
Articles by Alina Castellanos
Consumer Sentiment Falls to 47.8 in September's Preliminary Read as Year-Ahead Inflation Expectations Jump to 4.6%
The University of Michigan's expectations component did nearly all of the damage, dropping 5.7 points while current conditions slipped 1. The reading landed the same morning the BLS reported gasoline accounted for over a third of the monthly all-items CPI increase.
Wholesale prices rose 0.4% in August, with diesel behind more than a third of the goods increase
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday that final demand producer prices rose 0.4% in August on a seasonally adjusted basis and 5.4% over the 12 months before adjustment, with the goods side up 1.1% and the services side up just 0.1%. The BLS traces more than a third of the goods increase to diesel fuel, which jumped 24.1% — a cost that sits inside freight, farming and construction bills rather than on a store shelf.
A 1930 statute nobody had used is now setting tariffs on Canada. Friday's CPI will barely register it.
The 50 percent Section 338 duties took effect Aug. 22, leaving only the last ten days of the August price collection window. Canada's dollar-for-dollar answer landed Tuesday, and it does not touch US consumer prices directly at all.
Services Activity Accelerates in August While ISM's Price Gauge Climbs to Its Highest Since 2022
The Institute for Supply Management's services index rose to 55.4% in August, with business activity at its strongest reading since late 2022. Its prices measure climbed to 72.6% and its employment gauge contracted for a second straight month.
Jobs Week Opens With a Hike Roughly Half-Priced: JOLTS and ISM Tuesday, August Payrolls Friday
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to publish July job openings on Tuesday and the August Employment Situation at 8:30 a.m. ET on Friday, September 4. July payrolls fell 23,000 and May and June were revised down by a combined 103,000, leaving the first full data week of September to test a Fed at which three of the twelve voters already wanted to tighten in July.
Warsh Uses First Jackson Hole Speech to Warn the Fed Has "Work to Do" on Inflation; Rate-Hike Odds for Next Month Rise to 50% From 35%
The Fed chair told the Kansas City Fed's symposium that 2 percent is a firm, fixed target and that the central bank bears responsibility for 65 months of elevated inflation. Short-dated Treasury yields rose intraday as futures repriced.
July FOMC Minutes: Nine-Three Vote, 'Many Participants' Saw Tightening Ahead if Inflation Stalls, and a Proposal to Cut to Six Meetings a Year
The Federal Reserve released the July 28-29 minutes at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Wednesday. Three reserve bank presidents dissented in favor of a quarter-point increase while the Committee held the target range at 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 percent, and the Chairman floated moving from the eight scheduled meetings a year on the Board's published calendar to six.
Banks Told the Fed Their Business Loan Standards Now Sit Easier Than Their Post-2005 Midpoint. Subprime Card Standards Went the Other Way.
Once a year the Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey asks banks not what they changed but where the level of their standards sits inside a two-decade range, and the July 2026 answers split business credit from consumer credit.
The Fed Added $333 Billion of Bills in a Year. Reserve Balances Fell $376 Billion.
The August 13 H.4.1 release shows the Federal Reserve's Treasury bill holdings at 2.7 times their year-earlier level, and its mortgage book down $190 billion, as the Desk swaps the portfolio's composition. Reserve balances fell anyway, because the Treasury General Account grew $460 billion over the same twelve months. And the New York Fed's newest purchase schedule, which took effect Friday, plans no reserve management purchases at all.
The August Flash PMI Is Friday. The Numbers That Matter Are Buried Three Rows Down
S&P Global's preliminary US composite reading lands August 21. July left an unresolved argument inside it — the strongest private-sector growth since October 2025 alongside the fastest composite input-cost inflation since November 2022 — and the flash and final versions of that same month did not agree on how extreme the price story was. Here is what Friday can and cannot settle.
The Business Lending Boom Went Negative in July. The Mortgage Flatline Never Moved.
The Fed's H.8 release for the week ended Aug 5 shows commercial and industrial loans growing 12.2 percent in the first quarter and 14.2 percent in the second, both at seasonally adjusted annual rates. It also shows that run collapsing inside the quarter: 15.8 percent in April, 10.8 in May, 4.0 in June, and minus 1.1 percent in July. Residential mortgage credit, meanwhile, has barely moved all year, at 0.7 percent in the second quarter and 0.2 percent in July.
Blockade Talk Lifts Crude While the IEA Cuts Both Sides of the Barrel
Washington threatened indefinite naval pressure on Iran and oil rose on the day and on the week. The agency's August report cut supply and demand at once, which is the harder problem for the Fed.
Friday's Consumer Doubleheader: Retail Sales at 8:30, Sentiment Stuck Near 55 at 10:00
July advance retail sales and the preliminary August University of Michigan sentiment index land ninety minutes apart, and the forecasting services cannot agree on what the second one should print. The gap between what households say and what they buy is the number that matters into the Sept. 15-16 FOMC.
The PPI Headline Cooled. The Core Didn't. The Fed's September Argument Is Still Live
July producer prices were unchanged against expectations for a 0.2% rise, and traders cut the odds of a September rate increase. But the measure that strips out the noisiest components accelerated to 0.4% on the month, and two Fed officials spent Thursday arguing opposite sides of the same question.
The bond market barely moved on CPI, and September is still an open question
The 10-year note finished Wednesday essentially where it started, and futures pricing for the September 16 FOMC still spans roughly 37% to 45% odds of a quarter-point increase depending on which gauge you read.
Energy does the inflation work while core prices quietly cool
July's consumer price data showed a 3.4% headline rate propped up almost entirely by fuel and airfares, leaving the Fed's hawkish minority with a thinner case for a September increase.