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• Here’s a link to December’s CPI report. Read it; you might learn something…
• Well, would you look at that? FTX managed to stumble across just a minor $5bn in assets, upping the chances that you might actually someday get your money back!
• I wish Tim Cook was my second dad, but for now, I’ll take him being the CEO of the largest U.S. company. Guy literally DEMANDED a 40% pay cut, and investors said, “yes, please.”
• Big Dog Biden is catching heat from *checks notes* everyone after a slew of classified docs were randomly found in his homes (sound familiar??)

New Inflation, Who Dis?

Disinflation, that’s who. And it’s finally here.

Quick note: the language around falling inflation gets deliberately confusing. Disinflation is when the rate of inflation falls, such as growing at a slower rate. Deflation is when price changes in the economy are negative. Inflation going from 9.1% to 6.5% is disinflation. Inflation going from 9.1% to -0.1% is disinflation so strong it becomes deflation.

Yesterday, we got THE most IMPORTANT CPI print OF ALL TIME…until the next one. Consumer prices across the American economy rose at a 6.5% annual rate. For the month, prices fell 0.1%.

If you’re not jumping up for joy right now, I don’t wanna be friends with you. This is the epitome of “it ain’t much, but it’s honest work.”

Wall Street was hyped. Indices themselves didn’t rise enormously or anything, but cross-sector breadth was booming while analysts tried to digest the data. Let’s check out some highlights.

• Fuel oil prices fell 16.6% on the month but are still up 41.5% on the year
• Gasoline prices fell 9.4%
• Energy in the aggregate sank 4.5% in December, dragging down the whole index with it
• Food prices rose 0.3%, down from 0.5% in November
• Egg prices rose 11.1%, the top gainer in the basket for the month

Yup, gonna have to find something else to eat for breakfast for the time being. Fortunately, at least the drive to your therapist’s office will be a little cheaper.

Okay, so we finally got some good news on aggregate price levels in the economy. We’ll take that W all day, but what does this mean for JPow and the gang?

Well, not much, in all honesty, and that’s probably why the S&P didn’t spike 5% as it would’ve otherwise. See, Mr. Market might be the most erratic creation in human history, but he can be pretty damn smart sometimes. Hindsight is 20:20. But everyone was expecting this report to come in lighter than the previous one. Moreover, the S&P is up 4.6% since last week alone, suggesting this lighter print was already priced in.

You never know what is or is not “priced in,” but it’s pretty easy to take even an uneducated guess. Lesson of the day: the market, although it might be wild in its path to get there, tends to know what it’s doing.

The next FOMC meeting where JPow gets another chance to eviscerate your gainz is on Feb 1st. We’ll see additional relevant beforehand, but after receiving 1) a looser labor market report than expected, and 2) an inflation report exactly in line with expectations and showing a monthly decline, the writing on the wall speaks for itself.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond ($BBBY) ↑ 50.14% ↑

• *sigh* Fine, we’ll talk about it. If you were wondering, yes, this and all those other sh*t-for-brains meme stocks were intentionally skipped over in yesterday’s Peel. But fine, let’s get it over with.
• Shares in this steaming pile of cow dung ripped over 50% on Thursday, riding the gain train on literally nothing. Retail traders are holding again and flexing their diamond hands for the other morons that bought this thing. As a result, the classic short squeeze rally began once more.
• Those vibes continued after a strong rally on Wednesday, giving the (fake) company a 300% gain in less than a week.
• I never want to hate on retail buyers like you and me, but god damn, did we learn nothing from 2021-2022? Moral of the story: proceed with caution.

American Airlines ($AAL) ↑ 9.71% ↑

• Obviously, all of you are dedicated, loyal readers of the Peel and just absolutely loved yesterday’s Thought Banana on the FAA’s fiasco, so you know it was a tough day for airlines.
• Thursday was not. Thursday was a fantastic day for the airline bois, gaining +5% almost across the board, making Buffett roll in his premature grave looking back at his dumping of these shares in 2020.
• Basically, the outlook is looking good. American was piloting these stocks higher (ba dum tss) after issuing updated guidance for the year on both top and bottom lines that got the whole sector jumping. Hey, as long as my flight lands on time, I’m happy.