The Fed wanted you to believe inflation was beaten.
It wasn’t.
The annual inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) hit 3.8% for the 12 months ending April. That’s the highest reading in nearly three years.
Month over Month, April’s CPI print came in at 0.6%. Core CPI jumped 0.4% for the month and is running at 2.8% year-over-year. That’s well above the Fed’s 2% target, and it’s moving in the wrong direction.
Most of the financial media is pinning this on the Iran conflict. And yes, energy is a significant part of the story. Gas prices are up 28.4% over the past year. Consumers are paying $4.50 per gallon on average, up from $3.14 a year ago.
But the more important story is what’s happening outside of energy.
Shelter is the single largets component of the inflation data with a weighting ~30%. It just spiked 0.6% in a single month. Airline fares are up 20.7% over the past year. The producer price index — which tells you what’s coming down the pipeline to consumers — rose 1.4% for the month, the biggest gain since March 2022, and is now running at 6% annually. Producers don’t absorb those costs. They pass them on.
To be clear: this is broad-based. Services are accelerating. Goods are holding elevated. The inflation that was supposed to be transitory, then beaten, is now re-accelerating across multiple categories simultaneously.
Meanwhile, real average hourly wages fell 0.3% annually. Inflation is outrunning paychecks. That’s the part nobody in Washington wants to talk about. And the K-shaped economy in which the top 10% of incomes do great and everyone else is getting pinched will only work for so long. Eventually the consumer as a whole will tap out.
Put simply, the Fed is in a difficult position. Hike to fight inflation and you risk cracking a fragile economy. Hold rates and purchasing power continues to erode. Neither option is good for paper assets.
The next CPI print is June 10. If you’re not positioned in hard assets — energy, precious metals, real resources — you’re betting this resolves on its own.
I wouldn’t make that bet.
On that note, we just published a Special Investment Report concerning FIVE secret investments you can use to profit from the next major bull run in precious metals miners.
The report is titled Survive the Inflationary Storm. And it explains my top precious metals plays, including their names, their symbols, and the resources they own. These are HIGH OCTANE positions that rallied 75%, 140%, 150%, 180%, 280% and an incredible 574% in 2025. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see them repeat this performance in 2026.
Normally I’d charge $499 for this report as a standalone item, but in light of what is unfolding today, we are making just 100 copies available to the public.
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Best Regards
Graham Summers
Chief Market Strategist
Phoenix Capital Research
