Signs of easing inflation stoke U.S. Fed rate cut hopes – National [Video]

A measure of prices that is closely tracked by the Federal Reserve suggests that inflation pressures in the U.S. economy are continuing to ease.

Friday’s Commerce Department report showed that consumer prices were flat from April to May, the mildest such performance in more than four years. Measured from a year earlier, prices rose 2.6 per cent last month, slightly less than in April.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation rose 0.1 per cent from April to May, the smallest increase since the spring of 2020, when the pandemic erupted and shut down the economy. And compared with a year earlier, core prices were up 2.6 per cent in May, the lowest increase in more than three years.

Prices for physical goods actually fell 0.4 per cent from April to May. Gasoline prices, for example, dropped 3.4 per cent, furniture prices one per cent and the prices of recreational goods and vehicles 1.6 per cent. On the …