Written by Michael Thervil

[2026 SEPTEMBER CONSUMER PRICE INDEX] According to September’s Consumer Price Index, there was a 0.6% increase once seasonally adjusted for all urban consumers along with a 3.7% rise over the year when not seasonally adjusted. With “All Items” up 3.7% it appears that despite all issue stemming from the wars in the red sea, strait of Hormuz, Israel-Gaza War, the increased American sanctions on Russia due to the Ukraine-Russia War, in conjunction with the various commercial trade wars around the world; things are still somewhat positive for the American consumer. “Food” shows a slight increase to 2.5%, while “All Items Less Food and Energy” is also slightly up 2.6%. The biggest increase amongst all major categories was "Energy", which was up 20.4% for the month of September.

Looking at “Food”, “Food Away From Home” which stood at 3.5% continues its trend of overshadowing “Food At Home” which stood at 1.8% last month. Drilling down into “Food At Home”, the major winning sectors were “Fruits and Vegetables", "Non-Alcoholic Beverages”, and "Cereals and Bakery Products” which stood at 3.7%, 3.8%, and at 2.1% respectively. Following in fourth place was the category “Other Food At Home” which stood at 1.8%. There was a very low increase percentage wise in the category of “Meats, Poultry”, Fish, and Eggs” which modestly increased to 0.3%. What fell into the negative was "Dairy and Related Products” which dipped to -0.7%.

In the “Food Away From Home”, both “Full Service Meals and Snacks” and “Limited Service Meals and Snacks” showed a significant increase with “Full Service Meals and Snacks” leading between the two at 3.8% when compared to just 3.2% for the category of “Limited Service Meals And Snacks”. In the “Energy” sectors, it would be “Energy Commodities” that would show the greatest signs of strength and increase when compared to “Energy Services” at 35% and 4.6% respectively. Drilling down into “Energy Commodities”: "Fuel Oil” displayed the biggest increase with an increase of 74.2%. “Gasoline (All Types)” showed a marginal increase of 34.2% when compared to “Fuel Oil”.

In the “Energy Services” sector, the biggest winner would be “Natural Gas (Piped)” which showed an increased growth rate of 5.0% for the month of September. “Electricity” stood up pretty well in terms of showing signs of consumer demands showing an increase of 4.4% last month. Moving into the last category of “All Items Less Food and Energy”, the sectors that showed minimum signs of an increase were “Commodities Less Food and Energy” which stood at a mere 0.7% last month when compared to “Services Less Energy Services” which stood at 3.1%.  

In the "Commodities Less Food and Energy” sector, the biggest winner was and still is “Tobacco and Smoking Products” with a rate increase of 6.4% followed by “Apparel” which increased to 3.4% last month. Marginal increases were found in "Alcoholic Beverages” and “New Vehicles” at 1.4% and 0.6%. It should be noted that the sale of newer vehicles has been in a slump since the Biden Administration as consumers have been feeling the economic squeeze due to ever increasing inflation within America. Falling into the negative was “Used Cars and Trucks” and “Medical Commodities” which fell into the negative by -1.5% and -3.3% respectively.

In the last major category of “All Items Less Food and Energy", the biggest gains were seen in the “Services Less Energy Services” sector at 3.1% when compared to "Commodities Less Food and Energy” which stood at 0.7% in the same category. In the “Services Less Energy Services" sector, the order in terms of gains and increases were as follows: “Shelter”, “Transportation Services”, “Medical Care Services” all showing signs of increasing at 3.2%, 2.7%, and 2.5% respectively.