Two releases in two days just capped off the hottest run of data this cascade has seen. August PPI landed September 10 with its annual rate jumping a full 0.7 points. August CPI followed September 11 — a flatter, more two-sided print on the surface, but one that still worked in the dollar's favor once you look at what actually moved. Put together, the SOG Capital Macro Tracker's DXY Bias Score first climbed to +5 on those two releases, its highest reading of the cycle at the time.
Update, September 12: The September 8 COT report has since landed, and it reverses the fading-momentum signal this post originally flagged below. Net longs rose to 17,604 (+579 vs. the prior week) as shorts were cut faster than longs were added — genuine two-sided repositioning back in the dollar's favor. That flips the COT driver from neutral to bullish and takes the total score to +6, a new cycle high. The COT section further down has been updated to reflect this; the rest of the post is left as originally published.
Every driver, after both releases
The DXY Bias Score is built from ten macro drivers, each scoring +1, 0, or −1 depending on whether it supports dollar strength, sits neutral, or argues against it. Here's where every driver stands as of the September 8 COT report:
| Driver | Reading | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Fed Policy Stance | Hold, 9–3 — divided vote, hawkish dissent | 0 |
| SEP Dot Plot | Non-SEP meeting — not scoring this cycle | 0 |
| Jobs (NFP) | +162K vs 53K forecast — triple the estimate | +1 |
| Wages (AHE) | +0.3% MoM — matched consensus exactly | 0 |
| CPI | 3.4% YoY — flat vs July, core cooled to 2.4% | 0 |
| U-6 Unemployment | 7.7% — improved from 7.9% prior | +1 |
| PPI | 5.4% YoY — up sharply from 4.7% | +1 |
| COT Positioning | Net longs 17,604, +579 vs prior week (updated Sept 12) | +1 |
| CME FedWatch | 59.4% hike odds — a fresh cycle high | +1 |
| Geopolitical Risk | Iran/Hormuz re-escalation — hawkish for energy | +1 |
| TOTAL | Bullish DXY | +6 |
Six separate drivers are now scoring +1 — jobs, U-6, PPI, COT, CME, and geopolitics — and nothing is currently scoring negative. That's the real story here: it isn't one dominant catalyst, it's six smaller ones all lined up the same direction with nothing left to offset them.
Why a "flat" CPI print still helped the dollar
On the surface, August CPI looks like a wash. Headline printed +0.4% MoM and 3.4% YoY, both matching consensus exactly and both unchanged from July. That's not the kind of number that normally makes headlines. But the scoring model doesn't ask "was it hot in absolute terms" — it asks "did the year-over-year rate move up or down versus last month." July's 3.4% had itself been a cooling from June's 3.5%, so July was scoring bearish (−1) for the dollar. August's 3.4% is flat against that same 3.4%, which is neither hotter nor cooler — a genuine tie. That flips the CPI driver from −1 to a clean 0, and a one-point swing at the margin is exactly what took the total score from +4 to +5.
Underneath the flat headline, the print was genuinely two-sided. Gasoline jumped 3.9% MoM — over a third of the entire monthly increase — as energy pass-through finally showed up after months of stalling in this cascade. Core CPI ran hot on the month too, +0.3% MoM against a 0.2% consensus, on a shelter reacceleration and jumps in communication and airline fares. Yet the core year-over-year rate still cooled to 2.4% from 2.5%, so the underlying annual disinflation trend held even as the month itself ran warm.
What's actually driving the +6
The bigger contributors to this score aren't CPI at all — they're the five drivers that were already sitting positive, plus COT, which has now joined them.
COT positioning: from a caution sign to a confirming signal
Updated September 12 — this section originally flagged COT as the one driver not confirming the bullish read. The September 8 report has since reversed that.
What could move the score before the FOMC
The next scheduled catalyst is the September 15–16 FOMC decision — the same meeting the July statement's divided 9–3 vote was already flagging as live for a hike. With hike odds now at 59.4% and every recent data point either hot, flat, or now confirming, an actual hike would add directly to an already-record score. A hold, even a hawkish-leaning one, would leave the Fed driver at zero and the score would depend on whatever tone comes out of the statement and press conference.
One thing to watch closely in the meantime: whether the Iran/Hormuz situation escalates further or actually resolves — that's the one driver in this score tied to a fast-moving, non-scheduled event rather than a dated release, and it's currently one of six components propping up the score.
The full live picture — every driver, the current score, and the real-time narrative as each release lands — is at the SOG Capital Macro Tracker. It updates the moment new data hits, so you see the bias shift before it shows up in price.