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A little known fact about yesterday's CPI numbers: they weren't as inflationary as you would have otherwise thought.  It all comes down to decimals and rounding.

What The Headlines Reported

• CPI: 0.2% increase in January
• Core CPI: 0.3% increase in January

What The Actual Figures Were

• CPI: 0.174% increase in January
• Core CPI: 0.256% increase in January

Annual Impact of Decimal Rounding

• CPI: 0.312% increase to CPI
• Core CPI: 0.528% increase to Core CPI

Those annual figures are astounding (and extremely dangerous).

The rounding from three decimals places to one really warps the interpretation of the data.  After all, without three decimal reporting, Ty Cobb is a career .4 hitter and Ted Williams is no more special than Ginger Beaumont at .3.

Interpreting economic growth requires precision and the current rounding-in-reporting method is anything but. 

Dan Green is an active loan officer. Email or call 513-443-2020. Dan is on Twitter at @mortgagereports.