US Consumer Prices Hit 2% Fed Inflation Target

June 29, 2018 Share Print 0

U.S. consumer prices accelerated in the year to May, with a measure of underlying inflation hitting the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target for the first time in six years.

Consumer prices as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index rose 0.2 percent after a similar gain in April, the Commerce Department said on Friday. In the 12 months through May, the PCE price index surged 2.3 percent.

That was the biggest gain since March 2012 and followed a 2.0 percent rise in April. The PCE price index excluding the volatile food and energy components increased 0.2 percent for a sixth straight month.

That pushed the year-on-year increase in the so-called core PCE price index to 2.0 percent, the biggest gain since April 2012. The annual core PCE price index rose 1.8 percent in April. The core PCE index is the Fed’s preferred inflation measure.

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.