The consumer price index is expected to rise 0.6% in September. Economists spent weeks calculating this prediction. They used models. They consulted historical data. They published reports with charts that look important.
Here's what happens next. The number comes out. It's either 0.6% or it isn't. If it matches, nothing happens. If it doesn't match, also nothing happens. The market already priced it in. Or it didn't. No one knows which.
Retail traders will read "inflation accelerating" and panic-sell their index funds at a loss. They'll miss that inflation has been decelerating for over a year and one month of 0.6% doesn't change the trend. They'll see 3.6% year-over-year and forget it was 9% in 2022. But why would they remember that? It was two years ago. Ancient history.
The technical chart doesn't care about inflation data. Support and resistance levels formed months before this report existed. Price action already told you where the market is going. The September CPI number is just a narrative people staple onto moves that already happened.
Someone at Goldman Sachs predicted 0.5%. Someone at JPMorgan predicted 0.7%. One of them will be closer. That person will give interviews about their forecasting accuracy. The other will quietly revise their model. Both will be equally wrong about October.
The actual inflation number could come in at 0.6% exactly and some retail trader in Michigan will still blow up his account buying puts because a guy on Twitter said the economy is collapsing. That guy has 847 followers and a laser-eyes profile picture. Trusted source.
Economists expect the number to show price increases are accelerating, which is a fancy way of saying things cost more this month than last month, a phenomenon literally no one who buys groceries needed economists to predict.
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