© Reuters. People shop in a store in New York City, USA, on December 10, 2023. Photograph: Eduardo Munoz – Reuters.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The annual inflation rate in the United States slowed further in November and underlying price pressures continued to ease, which may reinforce financial markets’ expectations of an interest rate cut next March.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Friday that inflation, measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index, fell 0.1 percent last month after remaining unchanged in October. On an annual basis, the personal consumption expenditures price index rose 2.6 percent after rising 2.9 percent in October. October was the first month since March 2021 in which the index reading was less than three percent on an annual basis.
Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the core personal consumption expenditures price index rose 0.1 percent in November. The core index increased 3.2 percent year-on-year in November, the lowest increase since April 2021, after a 3.4 percent increase in October.
The Federal Reserve (the US central bank) monitors the prices of personal consumption expenditures in the hope that the inflation rate will reach its target of two percent.
The US Central Bank kept interest rates unchanged last week and policymakers indicated that the approach of tightening monetary policy followed by the central bank over the past two years had come to an end and that borrowing costs would be lower in 2024. Since March 2022, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by 525 basis points to The current range is 5.25 to 5.50 percent.
(Prepared by Marwa Gharib for the Arabic Bulletin – Edited by Ayman Saad Muslim)
2023-12-22 15:02:00
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