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You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Hey, we've been talking about this all day. Yeah, the economic data that we are are not getting.
Well, we're going to get a read on inflation on Thursday, right, and so one of the ways we have some fun every holiday season is figuring out what the cost of the twelve days of Christmas are.
Yeah.
So the reason we're talking about this is because it's just one read on inflation. Another read is what Carol mentioned, PNC's Christmas Price Index, the bank has been doing for forty two years. We've got Amanda Gatti with US, chief Investment Officer at PNC Asset Management Group. She joins us from Philadelphia. So, Amanda, is it more expensive than it was last year?
Let's like, what's the headline here?
It's almost always more expensive. Thanks guys so much for having me. On a year over year basis, the Christmas Price Index as upzero point five percent, so we are handily outpacing the BLSCPI version. So it's gonna cost true love this holiday season? All right?
So wait, what's costing us more.
Well, sadly, I mean, we talk about this every year, but sadly, my all time favorite gift is actually the biggest mover by far. So five golden rings. Do I have to elaborate on that.
Gold was an outperforming acid?
Nobody asked for five crypto rings Bitcoin, No.
They didn't, although they would have done okay for at least part of the year. But the five golden rings weren't up as much as the price of gold itself, still up a very hot thirty two and a half percent. It's really very much a reflection of what we think is a little bit of a margin squeeze right late
innings of the cycle. Still positive growth story for the economy, but margin pressures are building, and so we are seeing that in the price of the golden rings being passed through or maybe not quite fully passed through this holiday season.
Okay, so those are the golden rings. What else was what's the second most expense? Not most expensive, but the thing that went up the second most.
Pear tree really is which which nobody wants? A partridge? Okay, So the partridge was flat on a year over year basis not a gift.
That's not a gift that keeps on giving.
The tree is it's an awful lot of work. But the pear tree is what we refer to as a proxy for housing costs. And so when we think about housing and the housing market in this country, clearly running pretty hot on a relative basis year over year, affordability getting kind of challenged, right, Even though mortgage rates have come down some, it hasn't made a huge difference in terms of UH supply and demand and inventory levels. We're
still very short housing stock. So pear tree also running hot on a year over year basis.
Also performers, right, I mean the cost of labor. I guess you could kind of say.
Well, it's sometimes it is the cost of labor. Sometimes it's contractual escalators. This year, the big one is the ten Lords of Leaping. And I've been having fun all year talking about this one because Oasis has been the hottest concert ticket in town. You could refer them as the Lords of rock perhaps, But so this is the real world concert tickets experiences demand driving up those ten Lords.
How do you measure that just on a on a basis like are you just looking at an oasis? Are you looking at everybody?
No?
I'm teasing. I just it's fun to try, guess. I mean.
Went to an Oasis concert. At two Oasis concerts, I know one of them. Where did you go? Tell you our producers? Yes, Scotland in LA. She traveled all the way for Oasis from New York.
Like, so there's some.
Amazing Yeah, absolutely, as am I. But I don't have ten lords laying around here. So we do our best to try and talk to dance companies and theater companies on a year over year basis. There's a method to this scientific madness, and so I'm just trying to make it a little bit relatable. The lords of all the performers were the biggest standout on a year of your basis, so naturally it must be the Oasis effect.
If only I had ten lords a leaping just hanging around somewhere, just kidding, just kidding. Hey, what stayed the same? Or did anything go down?
Almost nothing goes down. Let's get real here, I would love to say, aside from the pandemic, when we had to shut the lights off on a lot of the performers and experiences just as a function of what was happening in the real world economy, a number of gifts did stay flat on a year over your basis, so two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds, the
seven swans, the eight maids. So there was a decent amount of stability on a year over year basis, but some pretty significant moves in the top three or four on a year of your basis.
How does this? I mean?
Look, we're you know, this is fun, and we do this because it's fun, but it's also does give us an opportunity to talk about the real world inflation that we're seeing and also real world asset price movements, Amanda. As Carol mentioned, we're getting some data this week, partial data when it comes to CPI. Some of it will be incomplete, some of it will be old, of course, But overall the index it moved more than headline figures. When it comes to CPI.
It sure didn't. That's not always the case. But you have to think about the gifts in the Christmas Price Index as a very specialty gift basket of goods and services, so it's not really a reflection of the broad economy and the US consumer in total. It tends to lean higher end in terms of the spectrum there, but I think it is a good indicator for what some of the pricing trends may look like this holiday season. So
the consumer is definitely hanging in there. On a relative basis, we definitely see consumers continuing to spend, and retail sales data continues to look solid. Holiday shopping looks good, but it's definitely going to cost consumers this holiday season.
Yeah, what's the next I'm curious about what data points you're kind of keeping an eye on to get an idea of what happens maybe in the first half of twenty twenty six, or is it too soon to kind of make a bet on anything we see over the next couple of weeks.
Well, I don't know if it's too soon necessarily to bet on it. I think the challenge is that some of the data is stale, so it's hard to extrapolate a trend from data points that are old or maybe incomplete.
So as it relates to consumer health, and we're obviously focused on how the holiday shopping season plays out, retail sales data, savings rates, even just consumer sentiment, there's a number of other components and indicators that we can use to gauge the success of this this holiday season and perhaps even the market path forward in the new year.
So good shape. We're in good shape.
I think we're in good shape.
Okay, yeah, unless you we're gonna.
Golden rings, or you're getting ten Lords of Leaping, or unless you pipers.
Might not be, might.
Not be in good shape. But the rest of us are in good shape.
You're in good shape.
Unless you're looking for Owaisis tickets because apparently they're not boring anymore.
So that's it.