Zaid Admani

You know, the longer that oil prices stay elevated, the bigger the impact it's going to have on the economy.

It could lead to inflation coming back, higher input costs for businesses.

I mean, there's a cascading effect.

Obviously, this is a fast moving story.

We're staying on top of everything.

So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop.

Let's run through some headlines, starting with inflation.

The February CPI report just dropped this morning and the numbers came in right in line with expectations.

Prices rose 0.3% month over month and 2.4% from a year ago.

And when you look at core inflation, which economists like to focus on because it strips out volatile prices like food and energy, that came in at 2.5% annually, which is the slowest pace in nearly five years.

What stood out to me as someone who's trying to buy a car soon is that used car prices fell.

Also, rent prices were up just 0.1%, which is the smallest increase in five years.

So on the surface, this inflation report was not bad.

But here's the thing though, this report is pretty much outdated already because it only captures prices before the war with Iran started back on February 28th.

So it doesn't capture the surge in oil prices and the ripple effect that that's having on the economy right now.

Economists often estimate that every $10 increase in oil prices can add about 0.2 percentage points to inflation.

In fact, we're already seeing a real impact at the prompt.

The average gas price went from $2.90 a gallon before the war to around $3.50 today.

So the March report is going to be key.

The numbers there could get pretty ugly.