If it made up the majority of the Labor Department's "CPI basket", the rate of inflation would currently be…zero.  We're talking about the ever-reliable $1.50 Costco hot dog combo, priced at $1.50 when introduced in 1985 and unchanged since then.  Before Craig Jelinek became CEO of Costco in 2012, he suggested to then-CEO Jim Sinegal that the retailer raise the price of its hot dog combo as they were losing money on it.  According to Jelinek, Sinegal said, "if you raise [the price of] the effing hot dog, I will kill you."  Had the Costco hot dog combo just kept pace with inflation, it would now cost about $4.13!  (Chart from thehustle.co)

For more information, you can contact Womack at greg@womackadvisers.com or call (405) 340-1717.

(Sources:  All index- and returns-data from Yahoo Finance; news from Reuters, Barron's, Wall St. Journal, Bloomberg.com, ft.com, guggenheimpartners.com, zerohedge.com, ritholtz.com, markit.com, financialpost.com, Eurostat,0020Statistics Canada, Yahoo! Finance, stocksandnews.com, marketwatch.com, wantchinatimes.com, BBC, 361capital.com, pensionpartners.com, cnbc.com, FactSet.)