Those indicators helped predict the moderation in goods prices that emerged last fall. For automobiles, where shortages of semiconductors held down production and drove up prices for both new and used cars, I looked at wholesale used car prices as a leading indicator of retail prices.
Those wholesale prices declined last fall but have turned up recently, suggesting that the moderation in goods prices may not be a smooth process. A big contributor to inflation over the past two years has been housing services prices (rent and a measure called owners' equivalent rent--essentially what a homeowner would pay if they had to rent their home).