According to Labor Department data released Tuesday, the consumer price index increased 0.2% in November and was up 6% from a year earlier, excluding food and energy. The gauge, also known as the core CPI, is considered by economists to be a more accurate estimate of underlying inflation than the headline figure.
Lower energy prices helped offset growing food prices, which resulted in the total CPI climbing 0.1% from the previous month and 7.1% from a year earlier.
US stock futures spiked after the data release, and Treasury rates plunged. In a Bloomberg survey of analysts, the median predictions predicted monthly gains in both the core and total measures of 0.3%.
The final 2022 report shows that, although still far too high, inflation is starting to moderate. The Fed will probably welcome the slowdown, but Chair Jerome Powell has highlighted both the uncertainty of the forecast and the Fed’s commitment to getting inflation back to its target level.
Although most economists anticipate a significant slowdown in an annual price increase for the next year, it is still being determined how complex or challenging the return to the central bank’s aim will be.
According to Paul Ashworth, chief North American economist at Capital Economics, “The Fed might reject the better-than-expected October as merely one month’s statistics, but the additional deceleration in November makes this new disinflationary trend tougher to dismiss.”
A half-point interest rate rise is anticipated to be announced by the Fed when its two-day policy meeting ends on Wednesday. Rates would reach their highest point since 2007, even though that increase would be less than what was done in the previous four sessions.
Next year, authorities are expected to tighten even further, followed by a protracted pause while they evaluate the country’s inflation trend and persistence.
Before the end of the year, according to market participants, the central bank will lower interest rates.
The largest service and a third of the overall CPI index, housing expenses, rose 0.6% last month, the lowest increase in four months, as hotel prices fell. According to the study, “by far the greatest contribution” to the total CPI growth was housing.
The cost of being away from home decreased by 0.7% after rising the previous month, despite rentals rising by 0.8% and owners’ equivalent rent increasing by 0.7%.
Although data from the private sector suggest that rents have stabilised in many American cities, there is a delay between changes that occur in real time and those that are reflected in Labor Department data.
November saw a 0.5% decline in core goods prices, marking the second consecutive month of declines. Service prices increased by 0.4%, the smallest increase since July when energy was excluded.
According to calculations by experts, pricing for services decreased significantly after accounting for energy, rent, and owners’ equivalent rent.
Recently, Powell stressed the significance of this kind of metric in determining the trajectory of a different inflation indicator, the core personal consumption expenditures price index.