The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure rose for a second straight month in November, according to government data published Friday, although the increase came in a touch below expectations.
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index rose 2.4 percent in the 12 months to November, up from 2.3 percent in October, the Commerce Department said in a statement.
Goods prices fell 0.4 percent over the last 12 months, while services jumped 3.8 percent.
Food prices rose 1.4 percent over this period, while energy prices dropped by 4.0 percent, underscoring some of the volatility seen in prices.
However, headline prices rose just 0.1 percent from October, pointing to a slight slowdown in what is sure to be welcome news for the US central bank.
Both the annual and monthly inflation figures came in slightly below the median forecasts from economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
“What we’re seeing is encouraging news,” New York Fed President John Williams told CNBC on Friday, adding that it had been “a bit of a bumpy kind of a journey” on inflation.
On Wednesday, the Fed cut interest rates by a quarter point to between 4.25 and 4.5 percent, and signaled a slower pace of cuts ahead, triggering a sharp sell-off in the financial markets.
The independent US central bank is responsible for tackling inflation and unemployment, largely by hiking or lowering interest rates to affect demand.
This indirectly impacts the cost of borrowing for consumers and businesses, affecting everything from mortgages to car loans.
While headline inflation has come down slightly, it remains stuck above the Fed’s long-term target of two percent.
At the same time, economic growth is still resilient, and the labor market has shown some signs of weakness while remaining relatively robust.
Excluding the volatile food and energy segments, the core PCE price index was up 2.8 percent from a year earlier, and by 0.1 percent from a month earlier.
Both figures were slightly below expectations.
“The disinflation process is continuing and a little bit of good news this month,” New York Fed President Williams said in his CNBC interview.
“We’re still not to our two percent goal; we will make sure we get there,” he added.
