Costco wholesale company COSTS surprised investors on Thursday with an earnings report beat the street estimates.

The company’s strong results make it an outlier in ailing retail.

However, those details from the conference call may not be the most surprising data the company released during its conference call.

Uniquely positioned to analyze consumer prices up close, Costco’s chief financial officer said he sees inflation steadily declining.

“We continue to see some improvements across many items. Commodity prices are starting to fall, failing to return to pre-COVID levels and some examples, but continue to offer some relief, things like chicken, bacon, butter, steel, resin, nuts,” Costco’s CFO said Richard Galanti.

As a wholesaler, Costco and other retailers like it Walmart WMT And Kroger KR you have a unique insight into the course of inflation in the USA

While the Fed has consistently hiked interest rates throughout 2022 and into 2023, macroeconomic data continues to provide numbers that are inconsistent with the agency’s goal of bringing inflation down to 2%.

This week, too, the labor market showed itself to be picking up again resilient to monetary tighteningincreasing the possibility of a Fed rate hike in March.

But in Thursday’s conference call Galanti shared his unique take on inflation, saying that “it seems to be continuing to improve somewhat”.

At the end of the company’s most recent fourth fiscal year, which ended in August, its own estimated price inflation was 8% year over year. Official figures from the Department of Labor indicate annual inflation this month at 8.3%. Costco’s results for the fiscal first quarter ended November put annual inflation for the quarter at between 6% and 7% for the company.

For the second quarter, the company estimates that the related inflation figure fell to 5% to 6% year over year, “and even slightly below that towards the end of the quarter, according to buyers.”

These projections mark a…