by John Carney
Breitbart.com
The Inflation Trend Is Not Our Friend
The Federal Reserve is about to triple down on its September rate cut mistake by reducing its benchmark for a third consecutive time next week.
The federal funds futures market currently implies a 95 percent chance of a Fed cut at the December meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). A 25 basis point cut will bring the cuts in the second half of 2024 to 100 basis points, a significant easing of the stance of monetary policy, despite a strong labor market and stubbornly persistent inflation.
The Department of Labor released its latest read on consumer prices on Wednesday. This showed consumer prices rising at a breakneck annualized rate of 3.8 percent in November, a big step up from the 3.0 percent annualized pace in October. Core inflation also rose at an annualized rate of 3.8 percent, up from 3.4 percent in October.