Oil and gasoline based models for CPI inflation forecasting - reprint 3

No adjustment to models and April CPI inflation comes in very close to my forecasts.

April 2017 USA CPI inflation has come in very close to my forecasts, made on this blog during early April.

No adjustment to models and April CPI inflation announcement on 12 May 2017 comes in at 2.2%, very close to my forecasts made more than a month ago:

http://1000gold.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/cpi-inflation-forecasts-for-march-and.html

The models I have followed most closely are geometric gasoline and geometric oil with 2 month moving average data being used for the latter. These models forecast 2.28% and 2.33% for April CPI, even without any adjustment in the models to take into account March's figures.

So what we appear to have is slowly falling inflation because of the slowing in year over year increases min oil and therefore gasoline prices. Sub 2% inflation probably beckons (according to the BLS figures anyway) for later in the year, as shown in the above link.

Oil and gasoline based models for CPI inflation forecasting - reprint 2

CPI inflation forecasts for March and April 2017

Here are my inflation model forecasts for March and April USA CPI:
The weakest model is Oil9. The others are quite consistent, using current oil and gasoline price action combined with EIA forecasts for oil and gasoline:

Month Oil8 OIl9 Oil10 Gasol11 Gasol12 CPI BLS actual
Feb'17 2.80 2.75 2.76 2.78 2.81 2.7
Mar'17 2.62 2.29 2.90 2.46 2.51 TBA
Apr'17 2.28 2.12 2.40 2.33 2.38 TBA

March CPI is to be announced any minute now.

US CPI Inflation forecasts for Mar and April 2017. Recorded 13 Apr 2017. These geometric and polynomial forecasts give lower inflation figures than purely linear (striaght line formula forecasts and match Feb's inflaiton well (2.7-2.8% against actual published 2.7%). They indicate figures of 2.5-2.9% for March and 2.3-2.4% for April, except for one outlier.
Linear forecasts for Feb and Mar were around 3.1-3.2 and 3.3-3.5 approx). I have modeified the models therefore to geometric models especially in the light of the bureau of Labor Statistics' US  Consumer Price Index inflation figures using geometric weightings for almost all of its components.

Video here explaining models with charts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd5SeKGaX8M

Oil and gasoline based models for CPI inflation forecasting - reprint 1

My first geometric oil models for forecasting US CPI in 2017.

23 March 2017:

I have a new geometric oil model (well, 3 variants, models 8, 9 & 10) that have come up with slightly lower inflation figures than I had forecast before. I was looking into the possible uncertainties in the regression line analysis that undelies the models and there is some, due to the scatter in the data. Anyway, the best estimates are now shown on the following chart until July 2017:

This incorporates oil price data to February 2017 and also EIA forecast prices for the months up until July 2017.

Closer view:

I am now looking at models based on retail and wholesale gasoline prices (including current price action and EIA forecasts)

Also, the two videos are here (that were recorded in advance of the CPI report on 15 March):

Inflation Forecasting and Energy Prices Introduction to Concepts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZwvaUnwppI

and

CPI inflation forecast models for USA February and March 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F30FOs42J34

Taking 1p, 2p penny and twopence out of circulation paves way for pound devaluation.

I recently head about the rumours that low denomination UK coins may be taken out of circulation. Here is one of the articles.

https://fundraising.co.uk/2018/03/15/penny-wont-dropped-copper-coins-remain-circulation/#.WxVzJ9QrLs0

There have been numerous other articles in the 'press' about this but I have heard little or no discussion verbally anywhere.

However I did find some interesting comments here on this Twitter page:
https://twitter.com/bbcpolitics/status/973595466452660225

My reply to the articles would have been this - but in order to reply to these things, it is often necessary to accept all kinds of marketing stuff and use of your information by these websites, just to make a comment. No way. So I'm writing it here:

All of these articles are talking about the shorter term practical consequences of this issue and are not saying "Why?" 
The "Why" is important. It's due to the debasement of the currency and decades of money printing by central bankers and the consequent destruction and robbery from the value of people's savings. It's a national disgrace that the penny - that used to be a big copper or bronze coin - is now worth so little that it can't buy anything. Even back in the 1970s, you could buy a decent 'Bubbly' bubble gum with a penny. Now, I never see anything priced less than 10p in UK shops.
The pound is being prepared for excessive devaluation that will turn it into a "peso." The withdrawal of these 'coppers' that are already made of cheap copper plated steel since 1992 because inflation makes copper too expensive, paves the way for the turning of the pound into a third world type of currency. The penny is not a farthing, or a halfpenny. Those are long gone. It is a penny, THE PENNY, a fundamental unit of our currency. Once it is gone, out of sight and out of mind, watch the pound plummet, until a pound is worth what a penny used to be worth.

Of course, it is also another step towards the cashless Big Brother society where we are being led by the nose. Anything that enables this is hot on the political agenda for the politicians and central bankers. 

However, when there is no cash and the other payments systems hit any kind of major problem, you won't be able to buy anything and may have all kinds of other problems - and you will never know the actual precise cause or be able to do anything about it. Your life will be outside of your control in yet another way. The card payments fiasco in May/June 2018 is a telling and scary example of where excessive belief in government and technology will lead us:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2018/06/visa-customers-hit-with-multiple-transactions-on-their-card-after-outage---heres-what-to-do-

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jun/01/visa-card-network-crashes-and-sparks-payment-chaos

As for coin values, the farthing (wthat used to be 1/4 of an old penny, would be worth 2 to 7p by year 2014. So, once a coin is removed the currency is devalued accordingly.

Wikipedia writes (with a reference):
"The purchasing power of a farthing up to its demise in 1960 ranged between 2p and 7p (in 2014 GB Pound values)."

In other words, a modern 2p or even 5p coin is already likely to be worth less than what an old 1/4 penny was worth back in 1960

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farthing_(British_coin)

Of course, modern society doesn't care about these things, like it doesn't care anymore abut a lot of things that actually matter. It is too concerned with short term pleasures and material gains - and principles are all going out of the window one by one. So, watch the pound become a peso and watch your life savings and pension dissolve into nothingness over the following decades.