This chart is making a very specific macro argument. It is asking whether today’s inflation path is starting to resemble the inflation cycle of the 1970s. The green line is current CPI. The blue line is the old 1974 to 1982 inflation pattern. The red circle highlights the moment where the two start to look uncomfortably similar.
That matters because inflation does not always die in one clean move. Sometimes it falls, gives everyone a false sense of relief, then comes back in a second wave. That is the real message here. The market may be treating the inflation scare as yesterday’s problem, while this chart suggests it could be more like halftime.
Why would that happen? Because inflation is rarely just about one thing. It comes from sticky wages, stubborn services, fiscal spending, supply constraints, energy volatility, and a central bank that may ease before price pressures are truly crushed. In other words, the first drop in inflation can be the easy part. The second part is where things get messy.
For commodity markets, that is a big deal. If inflation reaccelerates, hard assets usually get a fresh tailwind. Energy, industrial metals, and precious metals all become more attractive because they are tied to real-world scarcity, not just financial optimism. Gold tends to benefit when investors lose confidence in disinflation. Oil and copper can react if the market starts pricing higher input costs and tighter supply conditions.
So this is not just an inflation chart. It is a warning shot. If the 1970s pattern is even partly rhyming, the next move in commodities could be a lot more explosive than most people expect.
