Inflation is rising faster than analyst expectations
Timiraos 7/25 (Nick Timiraos, chief economics correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He primarily covers the Federal Reserve and major developments in U.S. economic policy. “GDP Report: Inflation Was Higher than Expected” 7/25/24 Accessed 7/25/24, https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-earnings-dow-sp500-nasdaq-live-07-25-2024/card/gdp-report-inflation-was-slightly-higher-than-expected-rMHracRnTle0qfrXYNnO) gc
Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy items, was a touch higher than analysts expected in Thursday's second-quarter GDP report, rising at an annualized rate of 2.9% instead of 2.7%. The reasons for the surprise will become clear Friday, when the Commerce Department releases the personal-consumption-expenditures price index for June. Economists can estimate PCE inflation using earlier reports from two other gauges, the consumer price index and the producer price index. Most economists expected core PCE inflation of about 0.2% in June prior to Thursday's report. The GDP report suggests that either April or May figures for core inflation—which were 0.26% and 0.08%, respectively—will be revised higher on Friday, or the June figure will be higher than economists expected.