WMT ON INFLATION

It's strange that it has taken the mainstream press so long to catch on to rising inflation, despite the Fed's releases, and the ridiculous "ex. gas/food " the two things Americans, scratch that, just about every single person in the semi civilized world uses EVERY DAY. Here at WOWS we have been noting the rising inflation for the better part of half a year in manufacturing reports, while the mainstream press heralds the good numbers, we actually read the report and what is being said by producers. Input costs have been a serious, growing issue for over a year. The Fed seems to be taking notice finally as evidenced by the plethora of Fed speakers this week all on message-hawkish. And lets not forget MIT's projection of 8% inflation for 2011.

At USA Today, today :) Bill Simon expresses the VERY obvious and in a main stream news outlet!

Here's his video statements about coming inflation.

Meanwhile commodities are going nuts today and will continue to do so until Wall Street and other speculators across the globe start to unwind their heavily leveraged speculative positions in risk assets. So if you wonder why the talk about definite QE3 has shifted to talk of the Fed absorbing liquidity and nearly free money for the banks in a matter of a month, wonder no more.

As I wrote yesterday, the trend in commodity inflation is without doubt a huge speculative bubble and we know how bubbles end. The Fed seems to be all together this week and on message (even hinting QE2 doesn't make it until June)  and that message should have speculators thinking about their exit strategy.

As for the video, while Mr. Simon does a good job in representing Walmart's plans to deal with rising input costs, if I were a WMT shareholder, I just assume he kept his mouth shut. We'll see how WMT reacts in the next few weeks. Despite what he said, it kind of comes off as, "Expect higher prices and it's not just us, it's everyone".