Consumer sentiment increased in June for the first time in six months, the latest sign that Americans’ views of the economy have improved as inflation has stayed tame and the Trump administration has reached a truce in its trade fight with China.
With inflation nearly defeated and the job market cooling, the Federal Reserve is prepared to start cutting its key interest rate from its current 23-year high, Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said yesterday that the Fed needs to cut its key interest rate before the job market weakens further.
Some of America’s largest companies, from Amazon to Disney to Yum Brands, say their customers are increasingly seeking cheaper alternative products and services, searching for bargains or just avoiding items they deem too expensive.
The Federal Reserve’s favored inflation measure remained low last month, bolstering evidence that price pressures are steadily cooling and setting the stage for the Fed to begin cutting interest rates this fall.
Inflation in the United States is slowing again after higher readings earlier this year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday, while adding that more such evidence would be needed before the Fed would cut interest rates.
The sharp interest rate hikes of the past two years will likely take longer than previously expected to bring down inflation, several Federal Reserve officials have said in recent comments, suggesting there may be few, if any, rate cuts this year.
“If higher inflation does persist,” he said, “we can maintain the current level of [interest rates] for as long as needed.”
Consumer inflation remained persistently high last month, boosted by gas, rents, auto insurance and other items, the government said Wednesday in a report that will likely give pause to the Federal Reserve as it weighs when and by how much to cut interest rates this year.
From Wall Street traders to car dealers to home buyers, Americans are eager for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates and lightening the heavy burden on borrowers. Central bankers? Not so much.
A top Federal Reserve official said this week that he is increasingly confident that inflation will continue falling, but provided few hints of the likely timetable for Fed rate cuts.
Higher energy and housing prices boosted overall U.S. inflation in December, a sign that the Federal Reserve’s drive to slow inflation to its 2 percent target will likely remain a bumpy one.
The U.S. economy has repeatedly defied predictions of a coming recession. Yet according to a raft of polls and surveys, most Americans hold a glum view of the economy. One reason? No disinflation,
“No one statistic can adequately characterize the labor market, since aggregate numbers do not show the wide range of experiences across people, sectors and places,” Susan Collins said.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested Thursday that the Fed is in no hurry to further raise its benchmark interest rate, given evidence that inflation pressures are continuing to ease at a gradual pace.
The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston believes that inflation still remains too high and that policymakers are keeping an eye on price stability.
The Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rate unchanged Wednesday for the second time in its past three meetings, a sign that it’s moderating its fight against inflation as price pressures have eased.
Boston Federal Reserve President and CEO Susan M. Collins is expecting interest rates to remain at restrictive levels, hinting that the Fed may have to further increase key rates, depending on economic data to come.
The stickiness of inflation could endanger the possibility that the Fed will achieve a rare “soft landing” for the economy.
For more than a year, the U.S. economy has defied predictions of a forthcoming recession. It has withstood 10 interest rate hikes in 16 months from an inflation-fighting Federal Reserve. In June, America’s employers added a healthy 209,000 jobs.
