1982 Déjà Vu

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What's Happening Today

Happy Monday! It's Kristin with your daily morning digest.

This week will be a busy one for the U.S. economy and businesses. On Wednesday, the Labor Department will share the Consumer Price Index—or CPI—a key measure of inflation that shows how prices are changing for goods and services consumers buy. For what has seemed like forever, the CPI has shown what most consumers already know: that the price of just about everything is going up—and it's expected to keep rising. The CPI is projected to have risen 7.1% from a year earlier, at the fastest rate since 1982.

Companies will also start releasing earnings data as part of what is known as "earnings season." While this might seem like inside baseball, it's a good look at how companies are performing and what they expect in the future. Do businesses expect prices to rise? Will the pandemic cause more problems? These are questions that you might hear some of the country's CEOs answering.

In the markets, stocks are lower as investors consider how fast interest rates will rise in 2022. In a note shared yesterday, Goldman Sachs predicted there would be four interest rate hikes this year, up from the three the Fed had told everyone to expect. Interest rate hikes are a tool used by the Federal Reserve to rein in inflation, which is great news for all of us shelling out more money to buy food, clothes, and other items. But it also means that you can say goodbye to ultra-low mortgage rates—and for those invested in the market, they could bite into future earnings of tech stocks.

- Kristin

Editors' Picks

Goldman Predicts the Fed Will Hike Rates Four Times This Year, More Than Previously Expected (CNBC)

Is Crypto the New Down Payment? For Some, Yes (The Balance)

Omicron Becomes Latest Speedbump for Shorthanded U.S. Factories (Reuters)

White House Allies Split Over Inflation Plan As Biden Trains Attacks on Corporate Greed (Washington Post)

Off the Charts

Revolving credit balances—consisting mostly of credit card debt—climbed $19.8 billion from October to $1.04 trillion in November, an annualized growth rate of 23.4%—the biggest jump in at least two decades, the Federal Reserve reported Friday.

Number of the Day

18 - That's how many months of the pandemic (all but three) the average hourly worker's raise has topped pre-COVID records.

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