- Goolsbee added that the labor market has been cooling modestly.
- U.S. consumer prices rose lower than expected in January, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released on Friday.
- U.S. citizens expect lower inflation in the near-term, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Federal Reserve Bank Of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee said further rate cuts in the U.S. can happen if inflation heads towards its 2% target.
“I think rates can go down more, even several cuts more, from where they are today. But that’s conditional on getting inflation back on path to 2%,” Goolsbee said in an interview to Yahoo! Finance. “Right now we are not on a path back to 2%. We’re kind of stuck at 3%, and that’s not acceptable.”
He also added that the labor market has been cooling modestly.
Latest CPI Print
U.S. consumer prices rose lower than expected in January, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released on Friday. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), on a seasonally adjusted basis, CPI rose 0.2% in January, after rising 0.3% in December.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that food prices increased by 0.2% in January, as five out of six main grocery categories experienced upticks. Additionally, both the shelter and rent indexes also climbed by 0.2% for the month.
The report comes weeks after the U.S. Federal Reserve in its latest FOMC meeting statement had said that inflation was somewhat elevated, which prompted them to keep the benchmark interest rates steady.
Near-Term Inflation
U.S. citizens expect lower inflation in the near-term, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As part of its latest Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE), the apex bank said that inflation expectations one year from now stood at 3.1% in January compared with 3.4% in December, while at the three- and five-year-ahead horizons, expectations held steady at 3%.
Meanwhile, U.S. equities ended the week in green. At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was fell by 0.04%, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ) rose 0.10%, while the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) also rose 0.10%. Retail sentiment around the S&P 500 ETF on Stocktwits was in the ‘bearish’ territory.