Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 2: tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey, we've been talking about this all day. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: economic data that we are are not getting.
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to get a read on inflation on Thursday, right,
Speaker 3: and so one of the ways we have some fun
Speaker 3: every holiday season is figuring out what the cost of
Speaker 3: the twelve days of Christmas are.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the reason we're talking about this is because it's
Speaker 1: just one read on inflation. Another read is what Carol mentioned,
Speaker 1: PNC's Christmas Price Index, the bank has been doing for
Speaker 1: forty two years. We've got Amanda Gatti with US, chief
Speaker 1: Investment Officer at PNC Asset Management Group. She joins us
Speaker 1: from Philadelphia. So, Amanda, is it more expensive than it
Speaker 1: was last year?
Speaker 2: Let's like, what's the headline here?
Speaker 4: It's almost always more expensive. Thanks guys so much for
Speaker 4: having me. On a year over year basis, the Christmas
Speaker 4: Price Index as upzero point five percent, so we are
Speaker 4: handily outpacing the BLSCPI version. So it's gonna cost true
Speaker 4: love this holiday season? All right?
Speaker 3: So wait, what's costing us more.
Speaker 4: Well, sadly, I mean, we talk about this every year,
Speaker 4: but sadly, my all time favorite gift is actually the
Speaker 4: biggest mover by far. So five golden rings. Do I
Speaker 4: have to elaborate on that.
Speaker 3: Gold was an outperforming acid?
Speaker 2: Nobody asked for five crypto rings Bitcoin, No.
Speaker 4: They didn't, although they would have done okay for at
Speaker 4: least part of the year. But the five golden rings
Speaker 4: weren't up as much as the price of gold itself,
Speaker 4: still up a very hot thirty two and a half percent.
Speaker 4: It's really very much a reflection of what we think
Speaker 4: is a little bit of a margin squeeze right late
Speaker 4: innings of the cycle. Still positive growth story for the economy,
Speaker 4: but margin pressures are building, and so we are seeing
Speaker 4: that in the price of the golden rings being passed
Speaker 4: through or maybe not quite fully passed through this holiday season.
Speaker 1: Okay, so those are the golden rings. What else was
Speaker 1: what's the second most expense? Not most expensive, but the
Speaker 1: thing that went up the second most.
Speaker 4: Pear tree really is which which nobody wants? A partridge? Okay,
Speaker 4: So the partridge was flat on a year over year
Speaker 4: basis not a gift.
Speaker 2: That's not a gift that keeps on giving.
Speaker 4: The tree is it's an awful lot of work. But
Speaker 4: the pear tree is what we refer to as a
Speaker 4: proxy for housing costs. And so when we think about
Speaker 4: housing and the housing market in this country, clearly running
Speaker 4: pretty hot on a relative basis year over year, affordability
Speaker 4: getting kind of challenged, right, Even though mortgage rates have
Speaker 4: come down some, it hasn't made a huge difference in
Speaker 4: terms of UH supply and demand and inventory levels. We're
Speaker 4: still very short housing stock. So pear tree also running
Speaker 4: hot on a year over year basis.
Speaker 3: Also performers, right, I mean the cost of labor. I
Speaker 3: guess you could kind of say.
Speaker 4: Well, it's sometimes it is the cost of labor. Sometimes
Speaker 4: it's contractual escalators. This year, the big one is the
Speaker 4: ten Lords of Leaping. And I've been having fun all
Speaker 4: year talking about this one because Oasis has been the
Speaker 4: hottest concert ticket in town. You could refer them as
Speaker 4: the Lords of rock perhaps, But so this is the
Speaker 4: real world concert tickets experiences demand driving up those ten Lords.
Speaker 1: How do you measure that just on a on a
Speaker 1: basis like are you just looking at an oasis? Are
Speaker 1: you looking at everybody?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: I'm teasing. I just it's fun to try, guess. I mean.
Speaker 1: Went to an Oasis concert. At two Oasis concerts, I
Speaker 1: know one of them. Where did you go? Tell you
Speaker 1: our producers? Yes, Scotland in LA. She traveled all the
Speaker 1: way for Oasis from New York.
Speaker 2: Like, so there's some.
Speaker 4: Amazing Yeah, absolutely, as am I. But I don't have
Speaker 4: ten lords laying around here. So we do our best
Speaker 4: to try and talk to dance companies and theater companies
Speaker 4: on a year over year basis. There's a method to
Speaker 4: this scientific madness, and so I'm just trying to make
Speaker 4: it a little bit relatable. The lords of all the
Speaker 4: performers were the biggest standout on a year of your basis,
Speaker 4: so naturally it must be the Oasis effect.
Speaker 3: If only I had ten lords a leaping just hanging
Speaker 3: around somewhere, just kidding, just kidding. Hey, what stayed the same?
Speaker 3: Or did anything go down?
Speaker 4: Almost nothing goes down. Let's get real here, I would
Speaker 4: love to say, aside from the pandemic, when we had
Speaker 4: to shut the lights off on a lot of the
Speaker 4: performers and experiences just as a function of what was
Speaker 4: happening in the real world economy, a number of gifts
Speaker 4: did stay flat on a year over your basis, so
Speaker 4: two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds, the
Speaker 4: seven swans, the eight maids. So there was a decent
Speaker 4: amount of stability on a year over year basis, but
Speaker 4: some pretty significant moves in the top three or four
Speaker 4: on a year of your basis.
Speaker 2: How does this? I mean?
Speaker 1: Look, we're you know, this is fun, and we do
Speaker 1: this because it's fun, but it's also does give us
Speaker 1: an opportunity to talk about the real world inflation that
Speaker 1: we're seeing and also real world asset price movements, Amanda.
Speaker 1: As Carol mentioned, we're getting some data this week, partial
Speaker 1: data when it comes to CPI. Some of it will
Speaker 1: be incomplete, some of it will be old, of course,
Speaker 1: But overall the index it moved more than headline figures.
Speaker 1: When it comes to CPI.
Speaker 4: It sure didn't. That's not always the case. But you
Speaker 4: have to think about the gifts in the Christmas Price
Speaker 4: Index as a very specialty gift basket of goods and services,
Speaker 4: so it's not really a reflection of the broad economy
Speaker 4: and the US consumer in total. It tends to lean
Speaker 4: higher end in terms of the spectrum there, but I
Speaker 4: think it is a good indicator for what some of
Speaker 4: the pricing trends may look like this holiday season. So
Speaker 4: the consumer is definitely hanging in there. On a relative basis,
Speaker 4: we definitely see consumers continuing to spend, and retail sales
Speaker 4: data continues to look solid. Holiday shopping looks good, but
Speaker 4: it's definitely going to cost consumers this holiday season.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the next I'm curious about what data points
Speaker 3: you're kind of keeping an eye on to get an
Speaker 3: idea of what happens maybe in the first half of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, or is it too soon to kind
Speaker 3: of make a bet on anything we see over the
Speaker 3: next couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know if it's too soon necessarily to
Speaker 4: bet on it. I think the challenge is that some
Speaker 4: of the data is stale, so it's hard to extrapolate
Speaker 4: a trend from data points that are old or maybe incomplete.
Speaker 4: So as it relates to consumer health, and we're obviously
Speaker 4: focused on how the holiday shopping season plays out, retail
Speaker 4: sales data, savings rates, even just consumer sentiment, there's a
Speaker 4: number of other components and indicators that we can use
Speaker 4: to gauge the success of this this holiday season and
Speaker 4: perhaps even the market path forward in the new year.
Speaker 2: So good shape. We're in good shape.
Speaker 4: I think we're in good shape.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, unless you we're gonna.
Speaker 3: Golden rings, or you're getting ten Lords of Leaping, or
Speaker 3: unless you pipers.
Speaker 1: Might not be, might.
Speaker 4: Not be in good shape. But the rest of us
Speaker 4: are in good shape.
Speaker 2: You're in good shape.
Speaker 1: Unless you're looking for Owaisis tickets because apparently they're not
Speaker 1: boring anymore.
Speaker 2: So that's it.