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U.S. inflation fell again in October, for the fourth consecutive month, and placed its year-on-year rate at 7.7%, four tenths less than in September, according to data released Thursday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
With respect to the previous month, the consumer price index rose four tenths, a similar amount to the increase recorded in September.
This data, which is better than what experts had predicted, comes a week after the Federal Reserve’s sixth consecutive interest rate hike to control prices.
It was by three quarters of a point and with it the official interest rate in the world’s largest economy now stands in a range of between 3.75 and 4 %, a level not seen since 2007.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned that possible future rate hikes and the end of rate hikes will depend on the evolution of data such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
As indicated by the BLS, the housing index contributed more than half of the monthly increase in prices, and the gasoline and food indexes also increased on a monthly basis.
Thus, the energy index increased by 1.8 % while the food index rose by 0.6 %.
On a year-on-year basis, over the last twelve months the energy index has increased by 17.6%, while food prices have risen by 10.9% over the last year.
Year-on-year data show that core inflation (which measures the rise in consumer prices excluding food and energy) was 6.3% in October.
In June, inflation reached its highest figure in forty years, 9.1 %, although in July it dropped six tenths to 8.5 % and since then it has been falling slightly at a rate of one or two tenths each month, up to the four tenths recorded now.
