Ahead of Thursday’s September report on US consumer inflation, the Treasury market’s implied inflation forecast via 5-year maturities quietly ticked down to 1.24% in Wednesday’s trading (based on daily data via Treasury.gov). The crowd’s estimate of future pricing pressure for 5-year Notes marks the lowest level since February 2016. Although market-based estimates of future inflation should be viewed cautiously, the latest dip is a reminder that a downside bias continues to prevail in this corner of economic expectations.
The market’s inflation outlook via 10-year Notes (calculated as the yield spread on the nominal security less