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US March PPI headline prints at 4.0% YoY vs 4.6% consensus; The herd is celebrating the “miss” while ignoring the 0.5% MoM jump that signals a structural floor in input costs. You’re buying the headline “relief” while the monthly trend remains broken; this is the definition of a bull trap.
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Core PPI (ex-food/energy) hits 3.8% YoY vs 4.2% consensus; This “cool” print is a mirage designed to trap late-cycle longs before the maritime energy shock fully bleeds into the logistics layer next month.
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NFIB Small Business Optimism Index fell 3.0 points to 95.8; Main Street just hit an 11-month low as profit trends collapsed to a net negative 25%—the sharpest deterioration in the sample. The backbone of the economy is snapping while the indices are propped up by passive flows; this is forced buying into a dead end.
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ADP 4-week average employment ticks up to 39,250 per week; Private hiring is surprisingly resilient, which gives the Fed all the “labor market strength” cover they need to keep rates restrictive.