John Authers, Columnist

Inflation Numbers Are Looking Too Good to Trust

The year starts with a positive surprise, but markets refrain from glee.

January 14, 2026 at 4:00 AM UTC

John Authers is a senior editor for markets and Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief markets commentator at the Financial Times, he is author of “The Fearful Rise of Markets.”

Shoppers in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Food prices are still rising.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

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For a pleasant change, the US macro data has started the year by administering a positive surprise. Wall Street was braced for consumer price inflation to rise in December as the problems caused by last year’s federal shutdown begin to iron out. It didn’t happen. Both headline and core inflation are as low as they’ve been in the post-pandemic inflation cycle that began in 2021.