There was good news and bad news on U.S. inflation on Wednesday. The good news is that headline inflation is continuing its downward trend toward the 2% threshold desired by the Federal Reserve. The bad news is that if you exclude traditionally volatile goods like food and gasoline (though they are important to consumers), inflation has risen, thanks largely to housing and travel. From that perspective, things are looking a little worse for American consumers — and for Wall Street, too, as investors’ fever dreams of a half-percentage-point rate cut by the Federal Reserve later this month have likely been dashed.

An important reason The reason the consumer price index is falling is because the price of oil has fallen, which means gas prices are lower. Although oil prices rose on Wednesday as Hurricane Francine slammed into key oil-producing areas in the Gulf of Mexico, the price has fallen from nearly $85 a barrel in July to nearly $65 a barrel this week. The recent decline has already caused OPEC+ to postpone a production increase, fueling investor fears that the extra barrels could be released even closer to 2025. The International Energy Agency — which is due to release a revised monthly outlook later this week — said in August that the market would risk higher inventories next year even if the cartel canceled the production increase. Of course, that’s probably good news for consumers.