Inflation signals continue to be hot

 Bloomberg:

Federal Reserve officials said inflation is too high and may take time to cool, even as fresh price data came in hotter than expected and new research suggested they may need to raise interest rates as far as 6.5%.

“The inflation readings are still not where we need them to be,” Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester told Bloomberg News in an interview Friday in New York.

A US government report showed a 5.4% increase in the Fed’s preferred gauge of price pressures in the 12 months through January. That was up from 5% the prior month and well above the Fed’s 2% target. Economists had expected an unchanged reading.

The report is “just consistent with the fact that the Fed needs to do a little more on our policy rate to make sure that inflation is moving back down,” Mester said.

Stocks fell on Wall Street, bond yields rose and bets hardened on the Fed raising rates to a higher peak than previously thought as investors digested the risks of persistently high inflation: A threat that Fed Governor Philip Jefferson also flagged.

“The ongoing imbalance between the supply and demand for labor, combined with the large share of labor costs in the services sector, suggests that high inflation may come down only slowly,” he told a conference in New York.
...

The US is still paying a price for Biden's reckless spending spree after coming to office. 

See, also:

Fox News Poll: More voters feel sting of inflation

Registered voters in Fox News Poll have low approval of Biden handling of Ohio train derailment

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