Editor’s Note: Somehow it has managed to be Thursday again.

I like Thursdays. Not only does it signal the end of the week is nigh, but it’s also a day in which there is often fun stuff planned.

I’m proud to be a Girl Scout leader, and my little troop meets on Thursday evenings. After that, my best friend often ventures out to the boondocks for dinner. She works Monday through Thursday inside the D.C. Beltway, which is a highway I refuse to traverse.

So Thursday offers her an escape.

Anyway, let’s get to it today!

The PPI Is a Party Pooper Yet Again

According to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, wholesale prices rose more than expected in September.

The producer price index (PPI), which measures the prices that businesses receive for their goods and services, rose 0.4% last month. The Dow Jones estimate had been a gain of only 0.2%.

On a year-over-year basis, the PPI rose 8.5% — a slight drop from the 8.7% year-over-year increase seen in August.

In large part, September’s increase was tied to a 0.4% rise in costs for services, which covers everything from travel to health care. In particular, “accommodation services” rose 6.4% last month.

No doubt, the Federal Reserve has taken notice of the PPI reading — as well as the upcoming consumer price index (CPI) report for September, which is due out tomorrow. The Fed takes the data from both the PPI and the CPI into consideration when determining interest rate moves.

Unfortunately, the higher-than-expected PPI increases the likelihood of another hefty rate hike when the Fed meets next month. Analysts now think another 75-basis-point increase is in the cards because the central bank’s aggressive moves haven’t quite tamed inflation yet.

But that also means there’s a higher chance of recession. Already, the Fed’s interest rate increases have thrown cold water on the formerly red-hot housing market.

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According to many economists and Wall Street analysts, the U.S. economy will likely tip into recession territory within the next six to 12 months.

On Monday, JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon told CNBC that the believes a confluence of global macroeconomic and geopolitical problems will trigger a recession within the next year.

“These are very, very serious things, which I think are likely to push the U.S. and the world — I mean, Europe is already in recession — and they’re likely to put the U.S. in some kind of recession six to nine months from now,” he said.

Of course, with mid-term elections looming, the White House begs to differ.

“I don’t think there will be a recession,” President Joe Biden said in an interview with CNN this week. “If it is, it will be a very slight recession. That is, we’ll move down slightly.”

Already, stock markets are down more than slightly. The S&P has lost roughly 25% year to date, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has plunged nearly 35%.

And the latest survey from Bankrate forecast that the jobs market will see an 80% slowdown, with employers adding only 97,000 jobs each month for the next year. The prior monthly average over the past 12 months has been 487,000.

According to Bankrate’s senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick, the jobs downturn will be due largely to the “pain” stemming from the Fed’s interest rate policy.

“It’s already led to a bear market in stocks and a deep freeze for the housing market,” Hamrick said. “That pain may yet coincide with a recession and surging unemployment rate, according to economists participating in our new Bankrate quarterly survey.”

There’s Still Pep Left In PepsiCo Yet…

Well, rising prices for practically everything actually helped soft-drink and junk-food behemoth PepsiCo (NSDQ: PEP) beat analyst expectations for the third quarter.

For the quarter, which ended September 3, PepsiCo saw a revenue rise of 9% year over year, to $21.97 billion. That was better than what Wall Street had forecast and occurred despite volume declines in some of the company’s biggest units — including the North American Frito-Lay business.

The company’s net income for the quarter was $2.7 billion, an improvement from the $2.22 billion reported for the same quarter last year. And total revenue rose from $20.19 billion in the third quarter of 2021 to $21.97 billion this year.

According to PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta, the company saw an increase in impulse purchases throughout the summer. Impulse drinks apparently tend to have higher profit margins per liter.

“The consumer is still very healthy in terms of our particular category,” Laguarta said during the PepsiCo earnings call on Wednesday. “Our brands are being stretched to higher price points, and consumers are following us.”

The company also revised its full-year 2022 expectations higher. The company now forecasts organic revenue growth of 12%, versus the previous expectation of 10% growth.

And PepsiCo expects core constant currency earnings per share growth to come in at 10%, versus the previous forecast of 8%.

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PepsiCo is pushing further into the energy drink market.

Back in August, the company took a $550 million stake in Celsius Holdings (NSDQ: CELH), which markets five lines of energy and “fitness” drinks.

PepsiCo also recently launched an energy drink offering under its Gatorade banner — FastTwitch (which sounds very painful).

According to Pepsi’s Chief Financial Officer, Hugh Johnston, the company is building a portfolio of different energy drink brands because the market for these beverages is extremely segmented.

PepsiCo reiterated that it expects costs to continue rising in the fourth quarter of this year. But the company reported that it is accelerating its cost-cutting initiatives. These include producing smaller sizes of products for its variety packs.

In the third quarter, PepsiCo’s gross margins were practically unchanged from last year’s — 53%.

Investors were certainly pleased with the news, and Pepsi’s stock ticked higher this week.

We’ll see how these results compare to PepsiCo’s chief rival, Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) when that soft-drink company reports earnings on October 25.

The Fed Moves Fast

A new infographic from Statista shows just how fast the Fed is moving to cool sizzling inflation.

When COVID first hit the U.S., the central bank quickly slashed rates to historically low levels.

But since March, the Fed has raised the federal funds target rate by a hawkish 300 basis points.

And the Fed is likely to initiate another 75-basis-point hike when it meets in November.

Read This Story: Waiting for the Fed Pivot: Another Fake-Out Ahead?

But the Fed has already moved quicker than it did in past tightening cycles.

Take a look:

You will find more infographics at Statista

Of course, this is wreaking havoc on the economy.

“Restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully,” Fed Head Jerome Powell said back in August.

You said it, buddy.

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