By
Personal consumption expenditures data came in as expected on Thursday.REUTERS/Brendan McDermidStocks climbed as the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge met expectations.Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased by 0.4% month over month in January.The reading should boost the outlook for rate cuts, as inflation doesn’t look to be reaccelerating.US stocks climbed Thursday as investors took in fresh inflation data for January.The US Department of Commerce reported that the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, climbed by 0.3% month over month and by 2.4% compared with the same time last year. Both figures matched consensus estimates.Core PCE, which excludes more-volatile food and energy costs, climbed by 0.4% from December to January and was up by 2.8% from a year ago.The fact that inflation doesn’t appear to be reaccelerating should boost the outlook for looser monetary policy.In a note after the data release, Capital Economics’ chief North America economist, Paul Ashworth, said that the figures were no surprise following the hot consumer-price-index and producer-price-index reports and that they contributed to the case for pushing back interest-rate cuts.Given that first-quarter GDP growth is on track to hit between 2.5% and 3%, he said, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge doesn’t change the broader narrative.Richard de Chazal of William Blair said that “adverse weather in January has been creating a lot of noise in the economic data for the month we have seen so far, whether it’s the retail sales figures or the industrial production numbers,” adding that “it is also likely today’s personal income and spen …
See the entire article on inflation, or, read more Arizona real estate investing news. It’s your call!