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The Homework: One Number Before Friday
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The Money Memo
Randy Cole, Editor · Sunday, July 26, 2026
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The Homework: One Number Before Friday
This morning I gave you the week's whole calendar. This afternoon, one thing worth doing before the week gets going, and only one.
Here is the homework: before Friday, know one number, the PCE price index, and know what you are looking for when it lands.
PCE comes out Friday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. It stands for personal consumption expenditures, and it is the inflation gauge the Federal Reserve pays the most attention to, more than the consumer price index that gets the bigger headlines. There are two versions in the release. The headline number includes food and energy. The core number strips those two out, because they bounce around from month to month. The Fed leans on core, so that is the one to find.
Why does this matter to an income holder who has no intention of trading around it? Because core PCE, more than almost any other single number, sets the direction for interest rates over the next few months, and interest rates set the tone for the rate-sensitive parts of an income portfolio. Utilities, real estate, mortgage REITs, and long-dated bonds all take their cue from where inflation is heading. If core PCE keeps cooling, the path points toward lower rates, and that tends to support those payers. If it stalls or ticks up, rates stay higher for longer, and those same names have a harder time.
So when the number lands Friday, here is what to actually look at. First, the core figure, month over month and year over year. Second, the direction compared with the last few readings, because one month is noise and the trend is the signal. You are not trying to predict the Fed. You are trying to know which way the wind is blowing for the income you collect.
One quiet point about the timing, because it is easy to miss. The Fed decides on Wednesday. This inflation number comes out Friday, two days later. So the policy decision is made first, and the number that helps judge it arrives after. That is normal. It just means Friday's print is less about this past meeting and more about setting up the next one.
One small note on where to find it. The Bureau of Economic Analysis posts the release on its site at 8:30 on the dot, and every major financial outlet will have the core number within minutes. You are looking for one line. It takes about thirty seconds to read once you know which line it is.
That is the whole assignment. Find core PCE Friday morning, note whether it is cooling or stalling, and file it away. You do not have to act on it. Knowing which direction inflation is drifting is enough to read the weeks ahead with a clearer head, and a clear head is most of what income investing asks of you.
Read that one number Friday. Then enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
The homework: Friday, 8:30 a.m., core PCE. Cooling or stalling. That is the one thing worth knowing before the week turns. P.S. Want a text reminder the morning core PCE lands Friday? We send one. Sign up here.
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What's the one number you'll check when Friday's PCE lands? Reply and tell me what you're watching, I'm curious.
Until tomorrow,
Randy Cole
Editor, The Money Memo
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