US consumer prices rose in line with expectations last month, data out Wednesday showed.

I think it’s fair to suggest that some of the drama has come out of these reports. They’re not the “bated breath” affairs they once were.

“Investors have become almost bored by inflation data at this point, widely expecting a ‘known’ and mechanical base effect decline in the overall trajectory, versus last year’s polar opposite backdrop of persistent upside surprises,” Nomura’s Charlie McElligott said Wednesday.

Core prices rose an as-expected 0.4% in April. The YoY pace was likewise consistent with estimates at 5.5%, still far too high, but no worse than expected.

The headline gauge also posted a 0.4% increase from March, and rose a slightly cooler-than-anticipated 4.9% from the same month a year ago.

Although used vehicle prices jumped sharply after a string of monthly declines, markets may look through that given both April’s drop on the Manheim index+ and what the senior loan officer survey suggested about the outlook for auto financing. New car prices declined from March.

The shelter gauge rose just 0.4%, the slowest monthly pace since January of 2022. The Fed is depending on shelter inflation to moderate consistent with developments in leases, among other things. The OER and rent gauges reaccelerated from March’s pace, though, with each posting a 0.5% increase.

The 12-month rates on rent and OER might’ve plateaued, but it’s still a waiting game. Recall that rents are now falling+ on a YoY basis, or at least according to one broker.

“Considerable slowing on rents is necessary to bring down current inflation toward 2%,” SocGen’s Stephen Gallagher said. “For nearly a year, on the basis of alternative rent data, we have looked to Q2 2023 as the time period for meaningful slowing of rents. The time has come.” Here’s hoping.

In other constructive news, the food at home gauge posted a second consecutive monthly decline, as did the electricity index.

People need food and although history suggests humans don’t necessarily “need” electricity, we do generally like it. There for a while, both grocery and electricity inflation were running double-digits on a YoY basis. That’s no longer the case.

The overall food index was flat for a second month, and the energy services gauge fell for a third straight report.

Elsewhere, the transportation services gauge notched its first monthly decline since last summer, and the medical care services index fell a fourth month.

Markets were likely to take the report in stride, particularly given what looked like benign readings on the so-called “super core” measures the Fed now focuses on obsessively.

Core services excluding shelter printed 0.27%, down slightly from March’s rate, and the same measure stripping out rent and OER rose 0.11%, just a fourth of the prior month’s pace.

All in all, this shouldn’t move any needles. I’d go so far as to call it a nonevent. Don’t think about inflation. Or pink elephants.