🦔Wholesale prices jumped 1.3% in September, more than double what economists expected, and are up 6.3% from a year ago. At the producer level, diesel rose 21% in a single month and grains rose 17%. Retail sales grew 0.8%, but nearly all of that came from people paying more for gas. My Take I’d treat this report as a preview of the grocery bill, unfortunately. Diesel moves almost every truckload of food in the country, and grain feeds the cattle and chickens, so I expect food prices in the consumer numbers to keep climbing through the holidays. Retailers and wholesalers also widened their margins 1.4% last month, so some of this is businesses charging more than their own costs went up. Strip out gas and retail sales rose just 0.2% while consumer prices rose 0.6%, so people are buying less and paying more for it. The Fed raised rates in September, and a report like this makes another hike before year end very likely. That keeps mortgage and credit card rates high for families who are already pulling back. Hedgie🤗

🦔GM announced that the 2027 Silverado and Sierra V8 trucks will not have a physical oil dipstick. Drivers will have to use a digital gauge on the dashboard instead. You need to start the engine and wait for the computer to give you a reading. A YouTube mechanic tested a similar system on another GM truck, drained a large amount of oil, and the digital gauge never changed. The sensor costs hundreds to replace. A dipstick costs about $10. My Take This is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy. GM took out a part that has worked for a hundred years and replaced it with a sensor that a mechanic on YouTube already showed doesn't read accurately on a similar GM system. When the sensor fails, and sensors do fail, you're at the dealer paying hundreds for something that used to cost $10 and ten seconds in your driveway. You used to pop the hood, pull the stick, and know exactly where you stood. Now you need the engine on, the computer running, and a prayer that the sensor is calibrated right. I think the auto industry has completely lost the plot on what regular buyers want. The average new truck transaction is over $55,000 because dealers stock the trims with the best margins. The base model exists on paper but good luck finding one on the lot. And if the payment doesn't fit, they'll stretch it to 100 months and call it affordable. Now the truck you can barely afford won't even let you check the oil in your own driveway. Every industry does this now. Find something people need, make it digital, make it harder to do yourself, and squeeze a little more out of people every year. CD sales went up 58% this year because people got tired of not owning their music. I think you're going to see that across a lot more industries. Hedgie🤗