A price gauge closely tracked by the Federal Reserve cooled slightly in April, a sign that inflation in the United States might be easing after running high in the first three months of 2024.
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Friday's report from the Commerce Department showed that prices, excluding the volatile food and energy categories, rose 0.2 per cent from March to April, down from 0.3 per cent in the previous month.
Measured from a year earlier, the so-called "core" prices climbed 2.8 per cent in April, the same as in March.
Inflation fell sharply in the second half of 2023 but then levelled off above the Fed's 2 per cent target in the first few months of 2024.
With polls showing that costlier rents, groceries and fuel are angering voters as the presidential campaign intensifies, Donald Trump and his Republican allies have sought to heap the blame on President Joe Biden.
A stream of recent remarks by Fed officials have underscored their intention to keep borrowing costs high as long as needed to fully defeat inflation.
As recently as March, the Fed's policymakers had collectively forecast three rate cuts this year, starting as early as June.
Yet Wall Street traders now expect just one rate cut in 2024, in November.
One influential Fed official, John Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said on Thursday that he expected inflation to start cooling again in the second half of the year.
Until it does, though, Fed chair Jerome Powell has made clear that the central bank is prepared to keep its key rate pegged at 5.3 per cent, its highest level in 23 years.
The central bank raised its benchmark rate from near zero to its current peak in 15 months, the fastest such increase in four decades, to try to tame inflation.
The result has been significantly higher rates for mortgages, car loans and other forms of consumer and business borrowing.
Australian Associated Press
