Another U.S. Inflation Gauge Is Heading Even Higher

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues in the coming week can expect to see their key inflation metric accelerate to a fresh four-decade high last seen when Paul Volcker led the U.S. central bank.The personal consumption expenditures price index, which the Fed uses for its inflation target, probably jumped 6% in January from a year earlier, according to the median of a Bloomberg survey of economists. The core measure, which excludes food and fuel, is forecast to climb 5.2%.Less than a month before the Fed’s next policy meeting, a sharper-than-projected advance in the price gauge could turn up the heat for a half-point increase in the benchmark interest rate. January’s consumer-price index rose more than forecast, with broad advances in the costs of goods and services. READ MORE