July 2026 CPI: 3.4% — who called it
The July 2026 CPI print landed at 3.4% year over year. Closest call on the headline: Street consensus. The benchmarks below were on the record before the release; the Nowflation rows were not: the receipt for this print was written after the release, so they are shown as graded and are not live calls. Each is graded against the BLS first print; signed error = forecast minus actual, so a positive number ran hot. These are the values frozen at grading time — later revisions by any source never touch them.
Headline CPI YoY: actual 3.4%
| Forecaster | Call | Signed error |
|---|
| Nowflation Forecast (ensemble) | 3.42% | +0.021pp |
| Nowflation Model (in-house) | 3.46% | +0.060pp |
| Cleveland Fed nowcast | 3.42% | +0.020pp |
| Street consensus (closest) | 3.40% | 0.000pp |
| Kalshi market-implied | 3.35% | -0.053pp |
Core CPI YoY: actual 2.5%
| Forecaster | Call | Signed error |
|---|
| Nowflation Forecast (ensemble) | 2.51% | +0.009pp |
| Nowflation Model (in-house) | 2.52% | +0.016pp |
| Cleveland Fed nowcast | 2.52% | +0.020pp |
| Street consensus (closest) | 2.50% | 0.000pp |
| Kalshi market-implied | 2.43% | -0.069pp |
Headline CPI MoM: actual 0.1%
| Forecaster | Call | Signed error |
|---|
| Nowflation Forecast (ensemble) | 0.10% | -0.004pp |
| Nowflation Model (in-house) | 0.10% | +0.004pp |
| Cleveland Fed nowcast | 0.09% | -0.010pp |
| Street consensus (closest) | 0.10% | 0.000pp |
| Kalshi market-implied | 0.09% | -0.014pp |
Core CPI MoM: actual 0.2%
| Forecaster | Call | Signed error |
|---|
| Nowflation Forecast (ensemble) | 0.20% | +0.004pp |
| Nowflation Model (in-house) | 0.18% | -0.022pp |
| Cleveland Fed nowcast | 0.21% | +0.010pp |
| Street consensus (closest) | 0.20% | 0.000pp |
Receipt written after the print (not a pre-registration)
Status locked · written September 1, 2026 at 5:23 PM ET · release 2026-08-12 08:30 ET. Nowflation CPI Forecast on the receipt: 3.42% · SHA-256 e454dbe74fc9042c…. Receipt JSON · all receipts.
The league table — headline CPI YoY, every graded print
| Forecaster | Live prints | Live MAE | Backtest prints | Backtest MAE | Combined MAE |
|---|
| Street Consensus | 45 | 0.087pp | — | — | 0.087pp (45) |
| Cleveland Fed | 45 | 0.104pp | — | — | 0.104pp (45) |
| Kalshi Market | 4 | 0.112pp | — | — | 0.112pp (4) |
| Nowflation Forecast | 3 | 0.212pp | — | — | 0.212pp (3) |
| Nowflation Model | 3 | 0.312pp | 41 | 0.095pp | 0.11pp (44) |
Live = for the Nowflation rows, the months whose receipt was locked before the release, graded on the receipt; for the benchmarks, every print they were graded on. Ranked by live MAE. Backtest = the Nowflation Model's vintage-true walk-forward before its first live print (June 2026). Lower MAE = closer calls.
July 2026 CPI print day, the print-day page for this month · Full scoreboard · CPI forecast · Methodology · Dashboard