▲ A supermarket in the United States (File Photo)
Consumer inflation in the United States has turned out to remain firm.
In particular, core consumer prices, which exclude volatile energy and food, exceeded expectations, reinforcing prospects that the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) could raise interest rates at next week's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for August rose 3.4% compared to the same month last year.
The month-on-month growth rate stood at 0.4%, which also met expectations, but the pace of increase expanded compared to July (0.1%).
The core CPI, excluding energy and food, rose 2.4% year-on-year and 0.3% month-on-month.
While the year-on-year figure matched expert forecasts, the month-on-month figure slightly surpassed the expected 0.2%.
This inflation increase was primarily driven by the energy sector.
By category, the energy index for August surged 2.1% month-on-month and 16.3% year-on-year.
In particular, gasoline prices rose 3.9% from the previous month, driving more than a third of the overall monthly CPI increase.
Compared to the previous year, it jumped 27.4%.
Shelter costs rose 0.3% month-on-month and 3.0% year-on-year.
Energy services fell 0.4% month-on-month, but rose 4.0% on an annual basis.
In addition, airline fares (2.7%), telecommunications (2.3%), used cars and trucks (0.4%), and new cars (0.3%) showed upward trends.
This CPI is the last major inflation report released ahead of the Fed's FOMC meeting next week.
As the pace of inflation slowdown is sluggish and core inflation has exceeded expectations, financial markets are gaining momentum for the view that the Fed may maintain a hawkish stance or take additional interest rate hikes.
According to the CME FedWatch Tool from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the interest rate futures market raised the probability of the Fed raising rates by 0.25 percentage points at next week's FOMC meeting from 72.4% the previous day to 83.4% on this day.
Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, forecasted a 0.25 percentage point rate hike at next week's FOMC, stating, "Fed officials such as Kevin Warsh have indicated that they can maintain a rate freeze only if the slowdown in inflation continues, but the index failed to meet this condition."
(File Photo: Yonhap News)
※
Copying, redistribution, and unauthorized use in AI training are strictly prohibited.