July CPI: Steady As She Goes

There's been no real change on the inflation front over the last few months - the CPI has been climbing steadily at pretty much it's long term average. About the only thing of real note has been that m-o-m changes in the CPI have been positive for three months running, the first time that has happened since June-August 2008 (log monthly changes, 2000=100):



My rough and ready core inflation measure however is showing price rises slowing (remember this excludes food and transport):



Not that I'm too keen on the reliability of this measure. It turns out that BNM does indeed track core inflation, but they use multiple methodologies. The exclusion method as they call it, such as I'm attempting here, is the main instrument used but their choice of items on the exclusion list is obviously more refined than mine:



For anyone interested, the methodologies used are outlined in pgs 87-90 of last year's BNM annual report from which the chart above was reproduced, or you can download it directly here (warning: pdf link).