We follow some absurd indexes to gauge things like inflation (CPI ex-food and energy being a good example) so we may as well take the PNC Christmas Index just a tad bit seriously.
For 27 years running, they’ve calculated the cost of buying the items mentioned in the song ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ to get a sense of where inflation might be heading.
From the AP via LA Times:
Buying the 364 items repeated in all the song’s verses — from 12 drummers drumming to a partridge in a pear tree — would cost $96,824, an increase of 10.8% over last year…
What’s behind this inflationary leap? Well, commodity prices of course!
Take gold for example, which is up 25% year-to-date:
Gold prices are higher — which pushed the cost of five golden rings up 30% to $649.95
And how about the rise of agricultural commodity prices – there are a lot of birds in that song. The ag commodity basket ETF run by Deutsche Bank (DBA) hasn’t done much in the aggregate year-over-year but several components have – corn futures are trading near 2-year highs for example.:
The cost of feed and the birds’ availability led to a 78.6% increase in the price of two turtledoves to $100 and a 233% increase in the cost of three French hens to $150.
Granted, the 12 items mentioned in their various quantities are a far cry from the necessities of life for most people (unless we’re talking crazy people), but still, there’s plenty of food for thought here.