Ordinary Ledger: rice down 31%, the burger up 16%

Tokyo’s consumer prices excluding fresh food rose 2.6% in October from a year earlier, the internal affairs ministry reported on Friday, a little slower than September’s 2.7%³. That single number is what central bankers watch. Your shopping basket is made of the numbers underneath it.

The staple that got cheaper. Rice fell 31.3% on the year, Sankei reports, because stocks are in surplus and new-crop rice is cheap¹. Reuters says it is the largest fall since records began in January 1971². The staple shelf is now pulling the index down.

The meal that got dearer. Hamburgers bought out rose 16.4%, after price rises at big chains¹. Food excluding fresh produce rose 3.0% overall¹. Of the 529 items in the core index, 364 rose, 115 fell and 49 were unchanged, Reuters counts; the number rising fell from 373 in September².

The bills that turned. Energy rose 2.2%¹. Kerosene was up 11.6%, which Sankei links to the worsening situation in the Middle East¹. Electricity rose 1.7% and city gas 4.9%, both turning higher on the year as government subsidies shrank and fuel costs passed through². Petrol fell 2.3%¹. Water charges were unchanged on the year, after a 65.6% rise in September, an effect of a one-month difference in when Tokyo’s free basic water charge ended last year and this².

What households may be saying. UBS’s Tsuyoshi Kurihara called the reading “weak” and said food prices were not accelerating towards the 8–9% peaks his firm had expected². He suggested watching whether households have grown tired of food price rises². Desk arithmetic: a rice bill a third lower can pay for a lot of dearer burgers. The ledger does not say the squeeze is over. It says the squeeze has moved from the staple to the extras, and to the kerosene can. For you, the lesson travels: when a headline rate barely moves, read the lines.