The acceleration in U.S. core Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation in March was in line with expectations, and likely a welcome development for Federal Reserve officials after a surprising string of soft inflation prints last year.

The minutes of the March 2018 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting affirmed our outlook that the Fed will likely continue to gradually and methodically increase interest rates and that the bar is relatively high for policymakers to change the current plan for two or three more hikes in 2018.

Consistent with our view last month that the Trump administration’s more significant (and market-moving) trade actions had yet to come, the recent announcement of tariffs on Chinese products related to the Section 301 intellectual property investigation has roiled markets and increased uncertainty over the possibility of a trade war.

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s announcement of another 25 basis point hike in the fed funds rate range to 1.5% to 1.75% was widely expected by us and by markets. The more interesting aspect of the March FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting is the change to central bank officials’ forecasts.

We believe the trade actions with the most significant potential economic and market impact have yet to unfold.

We saw little to surprise in February’s U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation print: Core CPI (excluding food and energy prices) gained 0.18% month-over-month, a moderation from January’s 0.34% gain, and held steady at 1.8% year-over-year.

U.S. inflation continued to accelerate in January, with a 0.349% month-over-month advance in core Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation (which excludes food and energy prices) – the strongest gain since 2001.

The U.S. economic numbers released last week preceded a slide in equities, prompting keen interest in what the data may have been signaling to markets.

Core U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose 0.22% month-over-month in October, broadly in line with expectations for firming price trends but notably stronger than the 0.14% average monthly pace this year.

Despite a hurricane-related surge in headline inflation, core inflation continued to run softer than expected in September, a trend that could make the Federal Reserve more cautious about hiking interest rates in December.

As many observers expected, after five months of surprisingly soft inflation prints, prices firmed in August. U.S. core CPI inflation (which excludes the volatile food and energy categories) was up 0.25%, boosted by the largest-ever one-month increase in hotel prices and surprising firmness in rents and owners’ equivalent rents (OER).

Another underwhelming rise in the U.S. core Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported on Friday increases the chances that Federal Reserve policymakers use the September meeting to signal they plan to abstain from additional interest rate hikes until next year.

A growing number of Federal Open Market Committee officials have voiced concerns over decelerating inflation since the June FOMC meeting, and the latest inflation print likely did little to alleviate them.

Another soft U.S. core Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation report – the third in a row that has lagged expectations – could complicate the Fed’s intentions to raise rates one more time this year, as the central bank’s Summary of Economic Projections currently forecasts.

Unlike in March, April’s soft inflation across a range of core goods and services prices cannot be explained away by large, one-off price adjustments or other quirks in the data.

Today’s U.S. labor market report solidified market expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise the fed funds rate by 25 basis points at its two-day meeting next week.

The 15 December Consumer Price Index (CPI) release was more or less in line with expectations, but it did show a moderate deceleration in inflation from recent months.

Trump’s fiscal and immigration policies appear likely to boost the near-term inflation trajectory.

Today’s CPI release was a bit of a mixed bag, but overall it doesn’t change our view that headline year-over-year inflation should accelerate toward 2.0%–2.5% over the coming year.