The Sahm rule, a clean recession indicator with a perfect post-1970 track record, fired in July 2024 and stayed triggered for months. The economy kept growing at trend. The reason is not that the rule is wrong, it is that the labor market is loosening through supply rather than demand for the first time in the modern data.
Shelter inflation is 4.8% in the April 2026 CPI reading. New-lease asking rents have been flat or declining for 18 months. The official measure is still catching up. When it does, the Fed's job is mostly done.
A 25% tariff on $400B of imports does not raise inflation by 25%. It raises prices on those specific goods by some fraction of 25%, filtered through how much of that category is imported and how much of the tariff gets absorbed by margins. The aggregate CPI impact is a few tenths of a point.
The DXY index, which measures the dollar against a basket of developed-market currencies, is down about 6% from its January 2026 peak. This matters for import prices, corporate earnings, and the debt ceiling math, in different directions.
@% publishes short macroeconomic articles. The number, the context, why it moved. Most macro journalism buries one data point under fifteen paragraphs. We do the opposite. Published by AT Media Group. No stock picks. No padding.