CPI Held at 2.4%. That Was Before Oil Surged.
Market Snapshot
The Signal
February CPI came in at 2.4% annually, holding steady from January. On the surface that looks like good news. It is not. February data was collected before the Hormuz closure sent oil up over 9% in a single session and gas up 16% in a week. The March CPI number, due in April, will reflect all of that. Energy is already adding an estimated 0.5 percentage points to the headline rate before any second-order pass-through to food and transport costs. The Fed sees the same data. March rate cut odds have collapsed to below 1%, down from 8% just a week ago. The hold is locked in for at least the next two meetings. Equities are drifting lower while crypto continues to decouple, with BTC holding above $71,000 and ETH gaining nearly 2%.
“February CPI was 2.4%. March CPI will be written in oil. The market already knows it.”
What To Watch
- →Oil above $120. USO closed at $119.49. A sustained break above $120 per barrel is the threshold where airline, trucking, and manufacturing earnings guidance starts getting revised down. Watch for Q1 pre-announcements.
- →Gold below $460. GLD is down nearly 1% again today, now approaching $460. Four consecutive sessions of gold selling while oil surges is not noise. It is a structural signal that this crisis is energy-driven, not broad fear-driven.
- →Fed speaker calendar next week. With March cuts off the table, any Fed speaker hinting at May flexibility will move rate-sensitive assets hard. Jerome Powell speaks Wednesday. Watch the language around “data dependent.”
