Your Money

Without earnings calls from big-name companies, market watchers and headline writers tend to magnify the attention given to economic data. Perhaps now more than ever because the Federal Reserve policy committee labeled itself data-dependent.

This week's two big reports are the consumer price index on Wednesday and the producer price index on Thursday. Here's a quick primer on what they are and what they mean:

Consumer Price Index (CPI)
CPI measures the change in average prices paid by consumers for a set of goods and services that represent regular expenses, like groceries or gas. This is the standard measure for inflation. A number on Wednesday that is in line or below expectations could give the Fed more reason to pause or end interest rate hikes. Of course, the opposite is also true.

Core-CPI
Because food and energy prices fluctuate more than all the other components, they can skew the index results. Core-CPI is a subset of CPI, and it measures price changes for all items except food and energy.

Producer Price Index (PPI)
PPI focuses on the price change from the seller's point of view, considering how much sellers pay producers for their goods. This index tracks average price changes for domestically produced goods, services, and construction. A number on Thursday that is in line or below expectations could give the Fed more reason to pause or end interest rate hikes.

10-year Treasury yield rises as investors look ahead to key inflation data
by Sarah Min and Sophie Kinderlin

Your Life

This Monday, Sept 11, 2023, marks the 22nd anniversary of the day that terrorism gripped this country, resulting in the loss of almost 3,000 lives in a matter of hours in the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and a field in Somerset County, PA. A total of 2,753 people were reported missing in lower Manhattan after the attacks on the World Trade Center. To this day, 40% of the victims, or about 1,100 people thought to have died in the disaster, remain unidentified. Recently, two victims, the first identification in two years, have been identified using DNA. If you are unable to attend any memorial event, please take a moment of silence to remember those who lost their lives and/or give a donation (no matter what amount) to your local fire department, first responder units, or directly to charities that continue to help victims and their families. We must never forget the people who lost their lives and their families' continuous pain and hardships. We must also remember the love and unity that bound us all during that time. Strangers reaching out to strangers. Signs everywhere of support. Even though it may not seem so, there really is more that binds us than separates us.

Two new 9/11 victims identified, the first identifications in two years
by Kristina Sgueglia and Zoe Sottile

Complexity Simplified

Trivia