Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / Unpacking Inflation's Impact on Memorial Day Weekend | Episode 135 | 05-20-24

Transcript

Unpacking Inflation's Impact on Memorial Day Weekend | Episode 135 | 05-20-24 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:00
  Megan Horneman: Well, enjoying the different festivities around the Memorial Day weekend may be a little bit more expensive this year, but not as bad as in past years.
• 0:07
  Megan Horneman: This is Markets with Megan, and this is our regular segment.
• 0:11
  Megan Horneman: It's Monday, may the 20th, and we're coming to you with a theme that we wrote about this week, and you know, the Memorial Day weekend is coming up this weekend.
• 0:19
  Megan Horneman: We want to take the time to honor those who have honored our country, the fallen in the military, and often we know that we tend to travel around this holiday.
• 0:29
  Megan Horneman: It's the kickoff to the summer, as well as lots of barbecues that are going on.
• 0:33
  Megan Horneman: So, given that we got the CPI report last week, we wanted to kind of look within some of the details there and give you an idea of the costs, of what's going to cost more this year compared to last year.
• 0:44
  Megan Horneman: Well, according to AAA, about 40 million people will travel by car.
• 0:49
  Megan Horneman: Gas prices are a little bit higher.
• 0:51
  Megan Horneman: They're about five cents higher per gallon this year than they were last year.
• 0:55
  Megan Horneman: The more expensive part of if you're traveling is if you plan on having to do any maintenance to your car, because maintenance costs are up 10% on a year-over-year basis.
• 1:05
  Megan Horneman: And then, from an airline perspective, domestic airfare is up about 2%.
• 1:10
  Megan Horneman: So again, we've had some really big annual increases in things like airfare rental cars, so 2% doesn't sound too too bad.
• 1:18
  Megan Horneman: The average round trip cost is about $778.
• 1:23
  Megan Horneman: Let's look at food prices for those that will be cooking out around the Memorial Day weekend.
• 1:28
  Megan Horneman: First of all, beef prices are up 7% on a year-over-year basis.
• 1:33
  Megan Horneman: Fruit and vegetables are up about 2%, so you might want to swap out those hamburgers and fruit salad for maybe something in the fish or seafood area, because those prices have actually been declining on an annual basis for the past eight months.
• 1:47
  Megan Horneman: When we look at alcoholic beverages, can't ignore that when you have a barbecue, but alcoholic beverages are up about 2% more than they were last year.
• 1:57
  Megan Horneman: Beer and other malt beverages, though they just saw their biggest monthly gain since December of 2022.
• 2:04
  Megan Horneman: And they're up about 3% on a year over year basis.
• 2:08
  Megan Horneman: But for those that like wine wine actually prices are only up less than a percent over the past year.
• 2:14
  Megan Horneman: Now why do we bring some of this up?
• 2:15
  Megan Horneman: Oftentimes when it comes around holidays, you know we want to take the seriousness.
• 2:20
  Megan Horneman: Thank the veterans who have served this country, as well as those that have fallen, but at the same time we want to look at things just from a cost perspective.
• 2:30
  Megan Horneman: How's it changed?
• 2:31
  Megan Horneman: We focus a lot on inflation here and we wanted to give that kind of update and spin on this Memorial Day weekend.
• 2:38
  Megan Horneman: Now the one thing is we are seeing inflation moderating and we got that report last week so it is trending in the right direction, but it's trending slower.
• 2:48
  Megan Horneman: We're seeing some things are still being sticky and problematic for the Federal Reserve.
• 2:53
  Megan Horneman: And the one thing is, you know there's a lot of celebration around the fact that the inflation numbers are trending lower, but keep in mind that we're coming off of some very significant increases.
• 3:06
  Megan Horneman: So when you look at, for example, food, that's only up 2% on a year-over-year basis.
• 3:10
  Megan Horneman: That sounds good for the Fed, but a year ago it was up 7% on a year-over-year basis.
• 3:16
  Megan Horneman: So we're compounding on top of those big increases that we absorbed after the pandemic.
• 3:21
  Megan Horneman: And since the pandemic, food prices are actually up 30% still.
• 3:25
  Megan Horneman: So it may be good news for the Fed, but consumers are feeling this and we're starting to see this in some of the retail sales data that we've gotten, and we're definitely seeing this in confidence data that we get out of consumers.
• 3:36
  Megan Horneman: So maybe good for the Fed, but consumers still feel this, even though 2% is not that high of a number.
• 3:42
  Megan Horneman: It's on top of all of these other big increases that we've seen over the past couple of years.
• 3:48
  Megan Horneman: That's all that we have for today.
• 3:49
  Megan Horneman: We'll be back with lots more economic data this week.
• 3:52
  Megan Horneman: We get a lot of information on housing, and then we'll also get the Fed meeting minutes that always we tend to look through and get more information, just those initial statements and press conference that Jerome Powell puts out.
• 4:04
  Megan Horneman: Thank you, if you have any questions or comments, please.
• 4:07
  Megan Horneman: More information, just those initial statements and press conference that Jerome Powell puts out.
• 4:09
  Megan Horneman: Thank you.
• 4:10
  Megan Horneman: If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to podcasts@verdence.
• 4:13
  Megan Horneman: com.
• 4:13
  Megan Horneman: Thank you.