Central Banks
Fed Faces ‘Soft Deadline’ for Rate Cuts as Inflation Progress Stalls
- Key gauge of consumer prices topped forecasts again in March
- Annual inflation unlikely to move closer to 2% in second half
Consumer prices excluding food and energy climbed 0.4% from February and 3.8% from a year earlier, the same as the month prior.
Photographer: John Taggart/BloombergThe bump in the Federal Reserve’s path to lower inflation is looking more like a roadblock, throwing into doubt its plans for interest-rate cuts this year.
The figures out Wednesday mark the third-straight month in which a key gauge of US inflation exceeded economists’ expectations. Consumer prices excluding food and energy climbed 0.4% from February and 3.8% from a year earlier, the same as the month prior.