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Investing.com – It appears that positive data does not come singly for the US economy. After the positive inflation data came Pollard’s statements, the most important of which was that the US economic growth expectations for the fourth quarter will exceed expectations.
Pollard also saw that the second half of last year exceeded expectations, which Pollard explained would be reflected in consumer spending this year. On the global economic situation, Bullard referred to a general breakthrough that included the US, Chinese and European economies.
On the labor market, Pollard said that it is not possible to know how much the unemployment rate will rise, but he stressed the strength of the American labor market. Commenting on the Consumer Price Index data, Bullard said that it is still far from the Fed’s target, but the positive is its improvement and decline, and that the Fed’s policy towards inflation is to keep it under constant scrutiny.
Regarding the shift and lowering the interest rate, Bullard said that what concerns the Fed is to avoid what happened previously in 1970, and therefore they must keep the interest rate high for some time until making sure that the high inflation rate decreases and collapses, explaining that the high rate of inflation is a number definitely higher than 5%, and that 5 % is the minimum interest that the Fed can adopt to face high inflation. Adding that the Fed should reach this rate as soon as possible.
Pollard ended his speech by saying:
markets now
It now rises by 0.69%, by 0.85%, and the S&P 500, by 0.57%, while it rises by 1.11% at $1900 levels and faces resistance, while spot contracts rise by the same rate and are now trading at $1896.11 an ounce. Contracts rose by 2.08%, at $23.97 an ounce, while both types of oil rose by more than 1%.
Losses are close to a full point, and it is now recording 101.957 against a basket of foreign currencies.
On an annual basis, the headline consumer price index for December increased by 6.5%, just as experts expected it to decline to 6.5% after recording 7.1% last November.
On a monthly basis, the main measure of inflation declined by -0.1%, while experts expected it to remain unchanged after rising by only 0.1% in the November data.
As for the Core consumer price index (Excluding food and energy) it witnessed a slowdown and rose by 5.7%, as experts expected, and on a monthly basis, it rose by only 0.3%, as experts expected.
Unemployment data recorded 205 thousand applications for unemployment benefits, which is less than what experts expected by 10 thousand, as they expected to receive 215 thousand applications for unemployment benefits, and thus the average unemployment claims decreased in 4 weeks from 214.25 thousand to 212.50 thousand.
Real income increased in December by 0.1% after recording a 0.2% increase in November.