{"id":76535,"date":"2024-09-27T19:00:11","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T19:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/guid_108040075"},"modified":"2024-09-27T19:00:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T19:00:11","slug":"key-fed-inflation-gauge-at-2-2-in-august-lower-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/key-fed-inflation-gauge-at-2-2-in-august-lower-than-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Fed inflation gauge at 2.2% in August, lower than expected"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/key-fed-inflation-gauge-at-2-2-in-august-lower-than-expected.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\" style=\"top:0;left:0\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-108040127\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>Inflation moved closer to the Federal Reserve&#8217;s target in August, easing the way for future interest rate cuts, the Commerce Department reported Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The <span class=\"waslinkname\">personal consumption expenditures price index<\/span>, a gauge the Fed focuses on to measure the cost of goods and services in the U.S. economy, rose 0.1% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.2%, down from 2.5% in July and the lowest since February 2021. The Fed targets inflation at 2% annually.<\/p>\n<div style=\"height:100%\" class=\"lazyload-placeholder\"><\/div>\n<p>Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting all-items PCE to rise 0.1% on the month and 2.3% from a year ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<div id=\"RegularArticle-DataWrapperChart\" class=\"DataWrapperChart-dataWrapperContainer\"><iframe title=\"Personal consumption expenditures index\" aria-label=\"Interactive line chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-m34W1\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/m34W1\/1\/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;\" height=\"427\" data-external=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>Excluding food and energy, core PCE rose 0.1% in August and was up 2.7% from a year ago, the 12-month number 0.1 percentage point higher than July. Fed officials tend to focus more on core as a better measure of long-run trends. The respective forecasts were for 0.2% and 2.7% on core.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All quiet on the inflation front,&#8221; said Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley. &#8220;Add today&#8217;s PCE Price Index to the list of economic data landing in a sweet spot. Inflation continues to keep its head down, and while economic growth may be slowing, there&#8217;s no indication it&#8217;s falling off a cliff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Though the inflation numbers indicated continued progress, the personal spending and income numbers both came in light.<\/p>\n<p>Personal income increased 0.2% on the month while spending rose 0.2%. The respective estimates were for increases of 0.4% and 0.3%.<\/p>\n<div style=\"height:100%\" class=\"lazyload-placeholder\"><\/div>\n<p>Stock market futures were positive following the report while Treasury yields were negative.<\/p>\n<p>The readings come a little more than a week after the Fed took down its benchmark overnight borrowing rate by half a percentage point to a target range of 4.75%-5%.<\/p>\n<p>The progress in August came despite continued pressure from housing-related costs, which increased 0.5% on the month for the largest move since January. Services prices overall rose 0.2% while goods declined by 0.2%.<\/p>\n<p>It was the first time the central bank had eased since March 2020 in the early days of the Covid pandemic and was an unusually large action for a Fed that prefers to move rates in quarter-point increments.<\/p>\n<p>In recent days, Fed officials have switched their focus from inflation fighting to an emphasis on supporting a labor market that has shown some signs of softening. At their meeting last week, policymakers indicated a likelihood of another half percentage point in cuts this year then a full point in reductions for 2025, though markets expect a more aggressive path.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<div class=\"RelatedContent-relatedContent\" id=\"RegularArticle-RelatedContent-1\">\n<div class=\"RelatedContent-container\">\n<div class=\"RelatedContent-nonCollapsibleContent\">\n<h2 class=\"RelatedContent-header\">Don\u2019t miss these insights from CNBC PRO<\/h2>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"waslinkname\">Market bull Tom Lee hesitant to jump into this post-Fed rally<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"waslinkname\">Here are the stocks that win when the Fed cuts rates with no recession<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"waslinkname\">Value investor Bill Nygren looking outside of crowded megacap tech, adds cheap financial stock<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"waslinkname\">Some smaller stocks could see big gains as the Fed cuts rates. Here are a few<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"ArticleBody-MobileAdhesion\" class=\"MobileAdhesion-container\" data-module=\"mps-slot\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inflation moved closer to the Federal Reserve&#8217;s target in August, easing the way for future interest rate cuts, the Commerce Department reported Friday. The personal consumption expenditures price index, a gauge the Fed focuses on to measure the cost of goods and services in the U.S. economy, rose 0.1% for the month, putting the 12-month &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bussiness","has-thumb","has-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}