Federal Reserve Likely to Scale Back Plans for Rate Cuts – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve officials today will likely make official what’s been clear for many weeks: With inflation sticking at a level above their 2% target, they’re downgrading their outlook for interest rate cuts, according to an Associated Press report.
In a set of quarterly economic forecasts they will issue after their latest meeting ends, the policymakers are expected to project that they will cut their benchmark rate just once or twice by year’s end, rather than the three times they had envisioned in March.
The Fed’s updated economic forecasts, which it will issue Wednesday afternoon, will likely be influenced by the government’s May inflation data, released Wednesday morning. That report showed that inflation cooled unexpectedly. Overall prices were unchanged from April to May. And so-called core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, rose just 0.2%, the smallest monthly rise since October.
Measured from a year earlier, consumer prices rose 3.3% in May, down from 3.4% the previous month. Year-over-year core inflation slowed from 3.6% in April to 3.4% in May, the mildest annual pace in three years.