Axon Enterprise, Inc. (AXON) Stock Forecasts

Summary

The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE Price Index, will be released this morning by the BEA. The index differs from the better-known Consumer Price Index because its composition changes more frequently and therefore reflects the impact of real-time price fluctuations more quickly. In the most recent report, through February, PCE inflation was 2.5%; in comparison, the last CPI report, through March, showed inflation at 3.5%. Core PCE, which strips out volatility in food and energy prices, was 2.8% last month, up from 2.9% the month before. Our PCE forecast calls for 2.7% for the headline figure and 2.8% for the base figure – roughly in line month-over-month as progress towards the 2% target of Fed become more and more difficult as the goal gets closer. Overall, inflation during this cycle peaked in the summer of 2022 and trended downward until plateauing recently. We track 20 inflation measures on a monthly basis. On average, they report that prices are increasing at a rate of 2.3% year-over-year, up 30 basis points from a month ago. The figures are somewhat skewed by the ultra-low figures in the producer-priced intermediate goods category, which are falling at a rate of 7% and may well indicate falling prices across the inflation spectrum in the months to come. Focusing on core inflation – which we get by averaging core CPI, market-based PCE excluding food and energy (from the GDP report), forward inflation over five years