When I published the full edition of the Index back in March, the ink was barely dry before the world rearranged the furniture on us. We were staring down a shooting war in the Persian Gulf, a Strait of Hormuz that had effectively slammed shut, oil rocketing past $100, and a Supreme Court that had just thrown out one whole legal basis for the tariff schedule. I told you then that those projections would need revision “as events unfold.” Well — they unfolded.
This mid-year supplement isn’t a re-measurement of the Index — it’s a forecast. It’s my read on where each input sector is likely to finish the full year given the trends through midyear and what’s coming in the back half, plus a preliminary look at the year ahead. It lands right when most of you are negotiating next year’s inputs with your allied-trade partners and setting next year’s plant prices, and that’s the whole reason it exists: to put defensible numbers behind those decisions so you can carry them into those conversations with confidence.
