BlackRock’s Weekly Market Commentary – Inflation: beyond near-term volatility

Inflation looks set to overshoot the Fed’s target as we have expected. Yet we see uncertainties around the near-term persistence of the overshoot as the restart leads to unusual supply and demand dynamics. We have closed our tactical overweight in inflation-linked bonds as inflation expectations have risen sharply, but favor them strategically as we see medium-term inflation still underpriced.

Chart of the week

U.S. firm price trends and core consumer price index (CPI), 2007-2025

Forward looking estimates may not come to pass. Sources: BlackRock Investment Institute, U.S. National Federation of Independent Business, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Reuters News, with data from Haver Analytics, April 2021. Notes: The orange line shows the net balance of firms in the NFIB survey of small and medium-sized businesses reporting that they are currently raising their prices. A value of 0 indicates that the number of firms raising and reducing their prices is the same. The solid yellow line shows the annual change in the U.S. core CPI inflation rate. The dotted line indicates estimates for core CPI. Expected values for 2021-22 are based on the Reuters consensus as of March 2021. The core CPI estimates from 2022 onwards are based on our expectations of the likely path of GDP growth, spare capacity in the economy and the outlook for monetary policy.

The Covid shock is more akin to a natural disaster followed by a rapid “restart” – rather than a traditional business cycle recession followed by a “recovery”, in our view. We see this distinct nature of the shock as having profound implications for inflation: The pandemic didn’t cause a shortfall in demand as in typical recessions; it has instead led to shortfalls in both supply and demand. As the economy restarts, both supply bottlenecks and pent-up demand are coming into sharp focus. Small U.S. businesses slashed prices at the onset of the pandemic, coinciding with a dip in the core consumer price index (CPI), or prices excluding those of volatile energy and food. See the chart above. The trend has since turned, with many small businesses raising prices. Consensus forecasts point to a peak of inflation in May, yet we believe inflation could be volatile in the near term and see risks to the upside given the unusual interplay between supply bottlenecks and pent-up demand as the restart plays out.

Right now we are witnessing supply constraints being pitted against surging demand as the economy reopens. Global supply chains have come under pressure during the pandemic, as companies are faced with challenges including component shortages, rising raw material prices and longer delivery times. Meanwhile we expect the pent-up demand to unleash as virus restrictions ease and activity reopens. This unusual dynamic could lead to volatile inflation in the near term, in our view. In addition, it could allow many companies more power to pass on higher input prices to consumers with cash to spare, preventing compression in profit margins.

We have closed our tactical overweight in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) after sharp increases in both inflation expectations and nominal bond yields. The 10-year breakeven inflation rate – a market-based measure of inflation expectations – has risen from 0.5% last March to about 2.4%. It has also become less responsive to recent inflation data surprises. We don’t see it moving significantly above 2.5% in coming months. Net inflows to TIPS exchanged-traded products (ETPs), on a rolling six-month basis, have hovered near record levels hit last December, according to Bloomberg.

We see U.S.CPI inflation averaging just under 3% between 2025-2030, and we believe this is still underpriced by markets. First, we expect higher production costs as the pandemic accelerates the rewiring of global supply chains. Second, major central banks are evolving their policy frameworks and explicitly intend to let inflation overshoot their targets. Third, the higher debt levels will make it harder for central banks to lean against inflation – and make the decision to start tightening more politicized, in our view. When looking at the concrete impact of higher debt servicing costs due to tightening monetary policy, the less tangible – but no less real – risk of loosening the grip on inflation expectations will likely pale in comparison.

The bottom line: We will likely see peak growth data and volatile inflation data in coming months – different from typical business cycle recoveries where better growth data typically have led to higher inflation. This may trigger some knee-jerk reactions and market volatility. We believe markets are still underestimating the potential for above-target inflation over the medium term. As a result we prefer inflation-linked bonds and are underweight nominal government bonds over the strategic horizon.