The Daily Feather — Impending Paraskevidekatriaphobia
In the West, there exists a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a fear of the number 13. Not that we can pronounce it, but we’ll hear more about paraskevidekatriaphobia as this Friday the 13th looms. But did you know that it wasn’t Judas -- the 13th, last, and most notorious guest to arrive at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday – who put the day on the Biblical map? While Jesus was crucified the day after, on the Friday after his 13th guest betrayed him, the day is also when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Following that first sin, Friday is the day Cain murdered his brother, Abel, the day the Temple of Solomon was toppled, and the day Noah set sail in his Ark into the Great Flood. For many reading this, our shared paraskevidekatriaphobia was created in Hollywood, by a screenwriter clever enough to dream up Jason Voorhees, the hockey-masked killer in the 1980s horror slasher, “Friday the 13th.”
As for what’s got the Street spooked, forget this Friday the 13th. Even as Truflation, with its 0.97 correlation with the headline Consumer Price Index (CPI), meanders around 2.50%, investors are petrified by inflatiophobia as September’s CPI release approaches in 72 hours. The year-over-year (YoY) headline is expected to tick down to 3.6% from 3.7%; its core counterpart, ex-food and energy, is forecast to fall to 4.1% from 4.3%.