St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said in an MNI interview, “we may see some relief in the headline CPI tomorrow but the reason we tend to track core PCE inflation is exactly because we ignore the energy price movement on the way up but also on the way down.”
“I would like to see improvements across a range of indicators of inflation, not just one measure ticking down a little bit but clear and convincing evidence,” he said, adding that it’s going to be “much harder” to get core factors to turn around.
Bullard still wants to get interest rates to 3.75-4.00% range by the end of the year. “I think the destination is a little bit higher than what I would have thought even a couple months ago because inflation has continued to broaden out and doesn’t look like it’s turning the corner at least based on the evidence we have today… I think it’s too early to make the claim that inflation has peaked.”
