Over the past year, global disinflation efforts have been complicated by escalating trade tensions that slowed global growth, geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine that induced volatility in commodity prices, and widespread political instability driven by acute affordability pressures. Cost-of-living crises have triggered government collapses and political realignments across both advanced and emerging economies.
Looking ahead to 2026, we expect inflation volatility to be amplified by structural shifts in trade and commodity markets. Reshoring and friendshoring initiatives across U.S., EU, and Japanese supply chains will sustain input price pressures. Competition for critical minerals required for AI expansion will intensify between China, the United States, Australia, Chile, Indonesia, and the Philippines, creating new dynamics in rare earth and lithium markets. The January 2026 US military operation in Venezuela and subsequent American intervention introduces fresh uncertainty to regional energy flows. These forces will interact with divergent policy agendas ranging from deregulation and fiscal consolidation to industrial subsidies and immigration restrictions, generating distinct inflation trajectories across our coverage universe.
These dynamics create trading opportunities for investors who can anticipate inflation volatility ahead of consensus. Turnleaf’s inflation forecasts leverage alternative data including real-time proprietary food and fuel price indices and high-frequency economic indicators like daily port activity to capture shocks before they appear in official statistics. We integrate these forecasts with AI-powered policy impact reports that systematically scrape and analyze government and private industry announcements across 35 countries, delivering actionable intelligence on the inflation volatility that will define 2026. This enables clients to position ahead of policy-driven surprises from tariff implementations, utility price adjustments, subsidy removals, or tax shifts that traditional models miss in real time
To read Turnleaf’s full 2026 Inflation Outlook Report, visit our latest Substack post, here.