from Zero Hedge
Earlier today we noted that the one thing every company was obsessing during their Q1 earnings call: inflation. As BofA equity strategist Savita Subramanian calculated, mentions of “inflation” quadrupled YoY, and after last week, mentions have exploded nearly 800% YoY. More striking was her observation that as “mentions skyrocket to near record highs from 2011” these point to at the very least, “transitory hyper-inflation ahead.” This is an official statement from a Big-4 bank, not some tinfoil conspiracy blog.
What is more concerning is that not only are companies talking about inflation, they are also responding to soaring input costs by hiking prices either in absolute terms or by stealth shrinkflation.
We presented an example of the latter over the weekend when we showed how Costco was masking nearly 15% inflation by selling a paper roll with 140 sheets for the same price it used to sell 160 sheets.