The Chicago Tribune on sticker shock when holiday shopping and how Putin and commodity prices are to blame:

The holidays are here, so get ready for excitement — at the cash register. That family dinner is costing more this year than it ever has before. Need to gas up for errands, or heat the home? Brace yourself for sticker shock.

Inflation did a number on household budgets over the past year, and the coming Yuletide season is promising more of the same, especially when it comes to food and fuel.

Those are the two most volatile parts of inflation, meaning they can go up or down suddenly based on the latest pressures from supply and demand.

The broader economy moves a little more predictably, and inflation overall is likely to cool in the weeks and months ahead, as painful medicine from the U.S. Federal Reserve kicks in. As for wheat, natural gas, eggs, gasoline and other everyday commodities, the outlook is less certain. And at least one closely followed expert sees more risk for commodity prices to shoot higher than to trend lower.

Speaking at the Futures Industry Association conference in Chicago, Natasha Kaneva of JP. Morgan Chase said commodity prices already stand at high levels, based on the backdrop of slowing economies around the world. Still, she said, “The risk is to the upside, not the downside.”

The market that worries her most: Agriculture, she said. Commodities trade globally, and prices reflect events that may seem impossibly remote. Few of us closely track the drought in Argentina growing areas, the intensity of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean or outbreaks of avian flu wherever poultry is raised. Yet those seemingly obscure factors can influence whether a gallon of milk costs more in Chicago than a gallon of gasoline.

The biggest wild card is an event that Americans have followed closely. Russia’s war on Ukraine has disrupted production in one of the world’s top breadbaskets. Ukraine is shipping less grain than normal and most of the outflow is from the 2021 harvest, before the war began.

This year’s harvest in Ukraine is down sharply. The war has taken out about 20% of that war-torn nation’s usual farm acreage, according to Kaneva, head of her bank’s global commodities research operation. Yields of wheat and corn on those reduced acres will be at least 15% lower than normal, according to her analysis, as the conflict robs Ukrainian farmers of access to fertilizer, seeds, fuel, equipment and manpower.

Making matters worse, this fall’s planting season for winter wheat was a bust, suggesting Ukrainian grains will be in short supply for 2023 as well, pushing up the price for animal feed and other basic products. “That’s a very, very big worry for us,” Kaneva said.