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Inflation Heats Up Again—Now What? · The Jon Sanchez Show

• Jon G. Sanchez, CEO: Good Friday afternoon to you. Welcome to the Jon Sanchez Show on Newstalk 780K It's a pleasure to be with you and a pleasure to have this week over. I know. Sounds like that. say that every single Friday. It's because every week there's something crazy going on. Can we just have any calmness and almost boring type of activity? Man, I would welcome it with open to say the least. But we know didn't happen this week. And we know it didn't happen today. You see, if you listen to my stock updates this morning, at or the 523 report, I told you we had CPI coming up at 530. My 553 report, I said, okay, was nasty, way expectation on the retail level of inflation. Stock market didn't do anything about it. Oil prices were kind of calm. Market just kind of went, okay. But then I think as time went on throughout the day, the algorithms, the traders, et cetera, they kind of went. ⁓ wait a minute here. Let's think about this for a second. Much hotter than expected inflationary numbers. is that going to transition for the economy? You we still have this thing called a war going on, which I'll bring you up to date on that situation and oil prices, of course. But higher inflation is the exact opposite of what the Federal Reserve wants. It's the opposite of what you and I want as retail investors, as borrowers. Why? Because again, higher inflation does one thing. It pushes the Federal Reserve out further and further as far as the probability of an interest rate cut. So this report that we got today was not one that we want that we can call Fed-friendly, just the opposite. So I decided based upon that report to really focus this Friday afternoon. Sorry to hit you with kind of a hard topic on a Friday. know everybody's tired, but we need to talk about it because it's influencing your portfolio and that's all I care about. So I'm going to go into details about what happened with the CPI report and really how it could just begin to change everything. You see, we had about a 25 % probability as of yesterday of one interest rate cut by the Fed towards the end of this year. That's it. 25 % probability. Haven't seen the stats today. I'm going to guess that number probably came down significantly to almost probably to the point where there's no chance of an interest rate cut, at least as we set right now. And if you wonder why I've spent so much time talking about the war and oil and all that, you see, folks, it's all connected. It's like a big jigsaw puzzle. It's like connect the dots, point A to point B to point C. Because as you're going to find out, one of the reasons the CPI data was so hot today and the market didn't like it and sold off on the news was very simple. Because with higher inflation and the Fed out of the picture, we have to ask ourselves, well, why is inflation hotter? Because I'll tell you what, the other report I'll cover with you, we had the University of Michigan preliminary review of the consumer confidence. This is a survey of about 5,000 households. And consumers are not feeling good about things at this point, nor should they. A lot of that, this is April's report, by the way, so it's very, fresh. But let's go back to connecting the dots. So we higher expected CPI. And as you'll find out, I'll let the cat out of the bag. A lot of it was attributed to the rise in oil prices. So let's fast forward. If these oil prices remain elevated for the month of April, that will be two reports we receive that showed higher than expected inflation. And what does that do to the economy? Well, again, this market was very much high the hopes that we're gonna get one to two interest rate cuts before this conflict broke out. That was kind of the theme. the consensus, I guess you could say, coming into this year, at least two cuts, if not more. that's out of the window at this point. So you see how important oil is? Yes, it's obviously a war that's going on. Human lives are being lost, so on and so forth. But if you bring it down to the economic side of things, it's very important to the overall scheme the economy. Because with higher inflation, that means higher interest rates, that means a slowdown in housing, that means a slowdown in consumer spending altogether. That means a consumer that's not feeling confident about things, and when they don't feel confident, what do we do? We don't go spend. We don't go spend? Pretty simple. Corporate America doesn't make money. So you see how very important oil is. So I'm going to start off I give you the recap of what happened today. We're going to get into our topic, which again, inflation is heating up. Now what? We'll talk about the CPI report coming in above expectations. What it means for the Fed, the market reaction, the real impact to you, the everyday hardworking American man and woman out there. What this means to the real estate side of things. And of course, is inflation on its way back? So we got a lot of things that we can talk about this Friday afternoon, and it's all going to be centered around inflation. But first, let's get to the stock market side of things today. So it was pretty quiet. Matter of fact, I joked as I started the show here just a second ago, I joked that, it'd be nice if we just had a quiet week. Well, we almost had it. We almost had a quiet session leading up to, I don't know, 8, 9 o'clock this morning, somewhere around there. Market just wasn't budging. Like I said, didn't react to the CPI report, didn't react to the factory orders report, didn't really even react to this weaker than expected University of Michigan report. This is like, okay, we've had a heck of a week and let's just get out of this thing with a small gain, small loss. But then again, things began to decelerate go opposite direction on us. Now we did have, let's get to the, kind of bring you up to date on the headlines as far as the war is concerned. So this weekend, there is a big meeting going on in Pakistan, to my knowledge, where Vice-President JD Vance and a other US delegates are going to be meeting with Iranian officials and many other around the world. starts this weekend. The president came out, told the New York Post today that the US military will resume strikes against Iran if negotiations do not result in a deal. the market again didn't really budge on that news. Are we looking at it just as another threat that people think are not it's not going to come true? Who knows? But this folks is a very, very critical weekend. Now come Sunday at 3 o'clock when the futures begin trading, I'm going to be glued to my computer because that will probably set the stage for what's going to happen on Monday, either good news or bad news. But if you've noticed, we've not heard really anything positive come out of Iran, other than, again, as I covered two days ago, their list of 10 demands, which all seem very, very unlikely. But we'll see again now that they're all going to be sitting down at the negotiating table, what's really going to happen? What are we going to give on? What are they going to give on? That type of thing. But here's the other thing that's very interesting to me. go back to the Strait of Hormuz. Still really no ships coming through there, just a couple. Normally 100 ships a day, if not more, pass through on average. A couple of them are going through, that's it. I didn't get a chance on the show yesterday to mention it, so I'll do it right now, I have a little bit more time. Yesterday, Iran said, okay, yeah, we're gonna, you know, think about opening the Strait of Hormuz. But we're gonna start charging a toll, a toll fee. that will be based upon the amount of oil that a ship can hold. And so without boring you with the math, it basically comes, because some of these ships are 500,000 barrels or more. But basically, the math comes down to somewhere around to three million dollars. These shipping companies would have to pay Iran for their ships to leave the Strait of Hormuz. And what's interesting is, this part talked about week ago, Iran wants to paid in cryptocurrency. Go figure that one. So now you still have shipping companies, ⁓ significant, hundreds ships still stuck there, oil's not moving. Now they're faced with having to pay millions of dollars for their ships to move. And this isn't just one time to let the ships out. This is what Iran wants to do ongoing. Again, they're calling it a toll. Remember the president a few weeks ago when this idea was originally brought up said, hey, you know what, we may partner with them. Then yesterday the president comes out and says, they better not be. was basically, wasn't real aware of that, but they better not be doing that. Or that basically the negotiations and the ceasefire. So I think market to summarize this week as far as the war, mean, we had our significant run up the other day at 1300 plus point gain on the Dow and. So on and so forth, a little bit of a follow through yesterday, a couple hundred point rise on the Dow there. But I think this market overall, think investors are still looking with one eye open, one eye kind of shut, saying, OK, time will tell how this thing is going to go. But overall, we're doing OK. And I think that's the idea. And again, you've got FOMO, you've got fear of missing out. You have investors that are saying, look it, I may have missed out on that massive run up on Wednesday in the market. But I'm not going let it happen again. I'm going to plug my nose. I'm to put my money back to work in the market, diversify my portfolio, see what happens until the next headline arises. So we, ⁓ guess, if we look back and say what really was accomplished as far as the war was concerned this week, well, if you believe that the ceasefire is going to hold, you can say that was a major accomplishment. If you're like me and you think that it's not going to hold, then I think it was just, again, kicking the can down the road type of scenario. But now we come up to our next big situation, which I guess is a lot better than at this time last week. Remember, this time last week, we were talking about, right before the show opened, we were talking about the devastating bombing of infrastructure in Iran. And then, of course, that did not happen. That got pushed out right when I was beginning the show on Friday. So now here where we sit. We're sitting back. We're going to wait to see what the negotiations happen this weekend. But now we have to start dealing with some of the aftermath of this war and this conflict, which is higher oil prices. and most importantly, the effects of inflation on the economy and what I really care about, which is your portfolio. So we'll come back, give you a market recap and then start moving into the world of inflation and kind of tie all this together for you. Let's turn it over to Kristen Snow. She's in the Right Now Traffic Center. Hello, Kristen. Welcome back to the Jon Sanchez Show on Newstalk 780K, which happy Friday to all of you. Let's get down to the market recap and then we'll move into our topic. Inflation is heating up again. Now what? All right. As far as the Dow, like I said, was kind of quiet this morning, but then things accelerated for various reasons. Didn't really have any uptick in oil prices. Matter of fact, finished down $1.34 on oil to $96.55 a barrel. So we can't blame that. But we can blame, again, the president's threat on the negotiations this weekend, as I said. And also, we can blame this hotter than expected inflationary number. So what did it do to the market? How about a 269 point decline on the Dow down 0.56 % to close at 47,916. Nasdaq was a bit more immune to the bad news of inflation. It rose today 80 points, 0.35 % to close at 22,902. And we had a mere eight point decline on the S &P 500 to a close of 6,816. Now the 10-year, two basis points for the day, so not much action in the bond market for the week. It was down three basis points. So that's again pretty amazing that that happened. boy, what a week it was. ⁓ &P 500 added 3.6%. The NASDAQ rose about 4.7%. And the Dow gained 3%. All again, most of those gains coming of on Wednesday after the big news broke on Tuesday on the show. So ⁓ we ourselves in a situation where, all right, I think investors are going to be a bit more timid. ⁓ They're sitting waiting to ⁓ analyze the headlines, not getting overexcited, which is the way I've I've recommended everybody should be during this conflict. Don't caught in the headline volatility, right? It's ⁓ wait something fundamentally really has shifted, i.e. the is or i.e. this thing is going to continue where have more definitive ⁓ information because again, right now it's just a whipsaw. You can one day obviously go very defensive and it be the wrong move like say, you Tuesday in the market you could have been very defensive which he would have had every right to be and then the president comes out says hey by the way we got a 45-day ceasefire and the market rallies like it did But all that is going to come down to really the second most important thing that this market is concerned with right now and that second item is inflation You see inflation is not something again that we talked about Unless it's a problem, right? We went years upon years where inflation just was unbudging. Matter of fact, I remember so many times behind this microphone sitting here just joking, another 2.1, another 2.2 inflation, CPI, so on and so forth. Boy, what we'd give for those days. What we would give for those days. Because now inflation is starting to pick up. So let's kind of give you a little bit of a background on inflation, right? The CPI. So remember, you got three inflationary reports that the Fed looks at. You have today's number, which is the CPI, the measure of inflation on the retail side. Then in a couple days, you'll get PPI, measure of inflation on the wholesale side. then you'll get what we received yesterday, which is the PCE, the expenditure number. And so as I yesterday, that is the number, of course, that the Fed really likes to pay a lot of attention to. It's calculated a little bit different way than the CPI is. And the PPI, they really like the of it. And so they'll tend to look at that one and put more credence into the PCE number than they will CPI and PPI. So let's back to yesterday, because that kind of ties everything in. So remember yesterday, I said for the month of February, our personal income was down 1 10th of a percent. Our personal spending side rose a half a percent. But the February PCE was up 4 10th of a percent. Core was up also 0.4 % of a percent. But yet year to date, we're north of 3 % on that PCE number. So way above, just remember the bogey here is 2%. That's where the Fed wants to get PCE down to. So we've got a long ways to go. And as I said yesterday, that's long before, that was February's data that we received. Didn't even have March's data when we started to see the uptick in oil prices. So here we find ourselves in a situation where inflation is already starting to raise its ugly head, but yet know, PCE numbers were February. Now today's CPI numbers, they did have March. this CPI data that we received again this morning could be ⁓ ⁓ indicator as to what we can expect when PCE comes out if indeed, again, oil remain higher than where they are now. So what CPI us today? So a month over basis, ⁓ CPI, and again, this is March's data. So February to March, what was the number? it rose 9 tenths of a percent on a month over month basis. OK? substantial. Prior, it was up 3 tenths of a percent. So February, was up 3 tenths of a percent. From January to February, February to March, it jumps up 9 tenths of a percent. Now, to show you how important energy prices are, we get to the second report, which is called the Core CPI. That's where they strip out food and energy. Well, that number was only up two-tenths of a percent. So you see, up two-tenths of a percent where you don't include oil, up nine-tenths of a percent where you do include oil. So oil accounted for seven-tenths of that CPI increase. There's how important oil is, and to my point. Now let's go back to the headline number on a year-over-year basis. Year-over-year, CPI is now up 3.3%. Ouch. Strip out food and energy up 2.6%. And it bumped up 1 10th of a percent from February to March on a month over month basis, year over year basis. So it was 2 and 1 half percent year over year. Now it's 2.6. But I want to go back to the headline where you include food and energy. With this monthly increase of 9 10ths of a percent, this is the highest level that we have seen since June of 2022. That was the COVID era. So you see, we're starting to get into some historical time periods now. And let me just, I'm going to say this over and over again, because I want to make sure I emphasize my point. And that is, remember, this is only March's data that we're receiving. That's, you know, again, the war began what, February 28th, if I remember correctly. So we didn't see a huge uptick in the beginning of the month. A lot of it came towards the end. But now we can see the impact of rising oil prices to inflation. rise in inflation means higher interest rates, means the Fed again is gonna remain at bay, and again, that could put pressure on the market. We've seen, we've seen over the years how important having that optimistic attitude that investors possess that the Fed's gonna be on our side, that they're gonna cut interest rates. So my question is how immune can investors be now when they know that the Fed is not going to be our friend, right? That the Fed's going to be out there towards the of the year if we even get one. I'm still going to hold my out there, that joker's wild card saying, you know, Kevin does get confirmed by the Senate. He is expected to be the next Fed chairman when Jerome Powell steps aside in mid-May. That I still, especially if this conflict is going on, I still will be surprised if he steps right in says, we're going to do an emergency rate cut. So the street is saying, yeah. very slight probability that we're going to get one. But you got a new chairman, which again could completely change everything. now you know what happened on the inflationary side. And again, it had a little bit of pressure on the market. So it came in above expectation, stickier what the Fed wants. The Fed, of course, if they had a meeting today and say, well, one report doesn't develop a trend. So let's wait for a couple more reports. interest rate, or excuse me, rising inflation does affect housing. affects services. It affects energy. It affects pretty much every aspect of our lives. And again, this is not what the market wanted to see. So when we come back, let's talk about in a little bit more detail the real impact on you. Everyday American, hardworking man and woman out there. But this hotter than expected inflationary number really does to your pocketbook, your portfolio. over to Jack Saban. He's got news, and weather. Welcome back to the Jon Sanchez Show on Newstalk 780k, which will be Friday to all of you. I hope you have a great weekend ahead of you. But let's finish up. Let's finish strong. Let's finish talking about some inflation, right? Things that, in fact, affect your portfolio. And definitely inflation does. Let's give you a recap of the market once again. For the day, we finished down 269 on the Dow, 0.56 % loss. NASDAQ higher by 80 points, 0.35%. And the S &P fell just 8 points. Closed in at 6,816. Buck 34 pulled back in oil, 96.55 a barrel. Gold up $29.80, the 4,787.30 an ounce. And again, a two basis point increase is all on the treasury tenure that is, two yield close of 4.32%. All right, so we're talking about inflation. What does this mean for the markets? What does this mean for interest rates? What does this mean most importantly for you? So what does this mean for you, right? That's all I care about. Let's kind of break this down. A lot of this is common sense, but let's just kind of refresh it. So once again, CPI checking in up 9 tenths of a percent, way above the expectation that Wall Street was looking for. Year over year, that's all I'm going to focus on, higher by 3.3%. Once again, you strip out food and energy, though. You get down to what we call the core. Month over month up 2 tenths of a percent. Year over year up 2 and 1 half percent. So we can essentially say, what, 50? So 80 basis points, higher oil prices. are impacting inflation, right? If we look at year over year core versus headline. So it's significant, very significant. So what do you do? What are your impacts as far as an investor, as far as a consumer? we all know, of course, our cost of living is going to remain elevated. Now, we still have the assumption, of course, that, and be optimistic, this conflict, this war comes to an end, oil prices start to stabilize. Many are they'll never get back. I know it's harsh words. Many are saying oil will never get back to where it was before the conflict began, is in that, I mean, know, high 60, low 70 mark. They're saying that's not going to happen, that we're going to be stuck. The new norm is I like to call it's going to be between 80 to $90 a barrel. And once again, we closed at 96.55 for various reasons that I won't bore you with why they're saying that. So let's assume that they do stay up at this, you know, approximate level around the 90 to $100 mark. So our cost of living is going to be impacted because oil again is so very important. It affects everything that we do. It's not just at the gas pump. It's at the grocery store. It's in our clothes. It's everywhere. Because oil, whether it's used in the production of the certain product, if it's not used there, then it's used somewhere in the ⁓ chain and getting the product from the factory to the stores, onto shelves at grocery store, whatever the case is. It's everywhere. It's the tentacles that just find its way throughout the entire economy. individuals as investors as consumers, we need to plan for this. So my first advice is you better sharpen the pencil on the budget. You know, if you are tight as it is now, you need to brace for higher inflation. Other areas that affect our lives, groceries, as I said, insurance, housing costs, right? A lot of trucking, a lot of things involved in oil are input costs into housing. And the other thing that doesn't get enough talk about, but I wanna talk about it, and that's wage inflation. You have to sit there and ask yourself, are your wages keeping up with inflation? In a perfect world, the answer is yes, my wage increases are greater than the inflation increases. But it depends upon what industry you're in. So essentially what you need to sit back and say is, okay, here we are, year over year, up 3.3 % on inflation. Have my wages risen at least 3.3 % year over year? If the answer is no, then again, you're going to go backwards, right? Because your dollar is not going to go as far. You're going be spending a lot more. So let's go to the big expenditure and impact on higher inflation. And that, of course, is mortgages. As I've said a couple of times tonight, here we are. We don't know what the Fed's going to do this year. If this thing is sticky for more than, you know, think the Fed can give, I'll back up a step. I think if we had maybe just a couple months of this higher than expected inflationary data, and I mean CPI, PPI, and PCE, then I think the Fed, we have more than a couple months, or let me say, if we have a couple months or less, I think the Fed's gonna still give us at least one cut this year. But if we have it for say three, four months, mean, you figure that's gonna take us into summertime, that's not a lot of time left in the year. Could the Fed still do something? Absolutely, as far as an interest rate cut. But they look at trends. So one you know, again, I wish the Fed was meeting tomorrow, Saturday, yeah, there go, because this is not trend. They're going to say, OK, hotter than expected number, but it's not a trend. again, if we get two or three months, now we have a trend. Now it's going to be very difficult for the FOMC to sit back and go, we can justify announcing an interest rate cut. No, they can't, because inflation has been up in our example two, three, four months. And matter of fact, again, that could bring back the probability that we would see the likelihood of an interest rate increase. Remember, the Fed's going to raise rates if inflation is out of control. They're going to cut rates if inflation is coming down. So you see how important oil is. Once again, go to the top headline numbers I said, up 3.3 % year to date. Go to the course, out the food and energy, and you're only up 2.6%. So as long as oil remains elevated, CPI is going to remain elevated. A little bit of elevation on the PPI. The PCE also could remain elevated. That's how important this whole oil situation is. Now the Trump administration, when this numbers came out, they said, it's temporary. and see what they said. Wait and see. So they're confident, of course, that oil prices are going to come down. Therefore, inflation will come down. And then Trump will get what he wants and what all of us want, which are interest rate increases by the Fed. But see, it all starts in the O word, with oil. to the housing side of things. So mortgage rates, right? Stubbornly high, we know that. We touched on it every Tuesday and Thursday with the boys. And if inflation remains up, it's not coming to the rescue, we can see those mortgage rates remain where they are, even trend a little bit higher. Once again, what's the culprit? It's oil. Buyers, well, as Aaron said yesterday, there's a lot of hesitation out there right now. It is turning into a buyer's market, no longer a seller's market. Why? People are concerned about their jobs. People are concerned about how far their dollar is gonna go. Right, back to the wage inflation side. So what we need to be asking ourselves is really a simple question. We've gone through a lot as investors over the last, you know, what has been five weeks now of this war. We've gone through a lot. And need to sit back and say, what has worked and what hasn't? As I've stressed over and over again, this market makes little sense of how reacts when it reacts. But all I can tell you, putting my personal bias aside, saying things just don't feel right, there's a disconnect between when you have oil like had a couple days ago, oils ⁓ up $112 barrel and the market rose, that doesn't make any sense. Well, again, somewhere, somehow. Somebody out there knew that the president was gonna announce a 45-day ceasefire. So go figure that one. But I think my point is, you can't figure this market out. That's the bottom line. You can't outsmart this market right now. You have to sit back and say this market is, and realize this market is gonna move on headline risk. moment a true social post could come out, or a comment from Iran, or a comment from any country. and it could sway this market one direction or the other. How do you plan for that? How do you hedge against it? You really can't. So of the best things that I recommend at this point is, you you look at, you go back and you say, okay, what has worked as far as sectors, as far as different types of stocks, ETFs, funds, different types of holdings? What has worked when the market is not concerned about rising oil prices, when the market is not concerned about inflation, when the market's not concerned about the war? It's pretty simple. It's kind of back to the basics. It's technology, AI, software, so on and so forth. That's kind of hit and miss right now, but still overall a good buying theme. anything related, the cruise lines, the airlines, so on and so forth. It's the industry, as crazy as that sounds. So it's things ⁓ really normally you like. You'd like to own in your portfolios, the caterpillars of the world, that type of thing. What doesn't work when the market is concerned? that the war is gonna continue, that oil prices are gonna go up. What doesn't work, or what works in a declining market? Once again, the oil stocks, right? they have traded like ⁓ a dot com stock this week, right, with these oil prices moving all around. So look at energy, you look at utilities, you look at anything that inflationary related, commodities in some form or fashion, treasury ⁓ inflation protected securities, we call tips. ⁓ There's a lot different things like that. So if you really want to kind of say, what kind of portfolio do I need to own right now? Just go back to this week and look at on the strong days, what sectors of the market did well. On the weak days, what sectors of the market did well. And again, there's no time in this market. There's no saying, I'm going to go all in on this type of portfolio or all out on the other type. As I've emphasized from day one that this thing broke out, a diversified portfolio is the best way to go. I mean, you heard the numbers that I shared with you a moment ago. That turned out to be a good week because of the big run up that we had on Wednesday. But again, who knows if that's gonna last? Because it sure didn't feel like it was gonna be that way up until the ceasefire was announced. So if you're gonna be in the market, just stay diversified. That is your best, best strategy at this point. If you wanna build up some cash for buying opportunities, like in some of those big down days, by all means, there's nothing wrong with that. If you wanna take some profit, absolutely nothing wrong with that. You have to look and see, as I always say, what's allowing you to sleep at night? Is your portfolio too risky? Is it moving too much? Is it causing you sleepless nights? That tells you right then and there you need to do something different. If you're like, hey, you know what, got a long time till retirement or whatever the use of that money is gonna be, cool, just diversify the portfolio. Let's wait and see where the dust is gonna settle. Either it's gonna get worse the market and in this war situation or it's gonna get better. Either way, you're hedging your bet. You're probably not gonna make as much as someone that went all in on one side or went all in on the other side, but that's okay. You don't wanna do that. You don't wanna swing for the fences and try to hit a home run, because the result is you can also strike out. Want to hit some singles and doubles, maybe a triple on a big day like we had on Wednesday. That's the way to survive the volatility that we're facing right now due to oil and due to higher inflation. I'll wrap things up when we come back. Let's turn it over to Kristin Snow ⁓ our final report in the Right Now Traffic Center. Hello, Kristin. Welcome back to the Jon Sanchez Show on Newstalk 780KOH. All right, gave you my advice what you should be doing right now. We went over inflation. I want to wrap things up with going just a little bit deeper with you on the CPI report. It lets you know just a little fun comparison for Friday afternoon. Where did you see increases in your personal life over the last month? You're probably saying everywhere. Well, if you're saying that, you're not alone, because again, we were up pretty substantially 3.3 % month over month, or excuse me, year over year. But here's where we on a year over year basis through the end of March. So listen to these numbers, this is kind of interesting. So from January 1 through the of March. Food at home rose 1.9 % in cost. In that category, you had a little bit of a pullback. Well, cereals, that's important. That was up 2.1%. Meats and poultry and eggs down in the 9 tenths. Dairy was down 1.6%. Fruits and vegetables though, there we go, the trucking side of it, up 4 % for that first quarter. Non-alcoholic beverages up 4.7%. Other food at home up 2.9%. Food away from home rose 3.8%. Mmm, getting little more expensive to eat out. Move on to the energy category, no surprise here. Energy prices for the first quarter of this year up 12.5 % overall. Gasoline, part of that report, up 18.9%. Electricity at 4.6%. And piped gas services rose 6.4%. So you're wondering why your utility bills are going up? Now you know. Now, all items less than food and energy were up 2.6%. Apparals, 3.4%. New vehicles rose 0.5%, but here's what's interesting. Used cars and trucks actually dipped 3.2 % in the first three months of this year. Medical care commodities up 3.10%. Rent on primary residences, higher by 2.6%. Medical care services up 3.7%. Motor vehicle maintenance and repairs. ⁓ I can relate to this one. It's so doggone expensive to get a vehicle worked on these days. Motor vehicle repairs and expenses up 6.1%. Motor vehicle insurance rose 0.8 % percent. And how about this for those of you that travel? Not me, I hate traveling. But those of you that do, airfare up 14.9 % for the first quarter. If you're drinking, You're up 1.7%. And finally, if you're smoking, tobacco and smoking products rose 7.4%. So as you see, much everywhere other than used cars and trucks, everything up in the first quarter. So that's what I mean. Sharpen the pencils, keep the budgets tight, keep a diversified portfolio, and we will get through this. God bless. Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday on the Jon Sanchez Show. Take care.