Goldman Sachs has brought forward its forecast by a year to July 2022 for the first post-pandemic U.S. interest rate hike, with the investment bank predicting that persistently high inflation will force the Fed to roll back stimulus more aggressively. “The main reason for the change in our liftoff call is that we now expect core PCE inflation to remain above 3 percent—and core CPI inflation above 4 percent—when the taper concludes,” Goldman’s chief economist, Jan Hatzius, wrote in a client note. Federal Reserve policymakers are expected to announce plans to start tapering the central bank’s $120 billion in monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities at the end of their two-day policy meeting on Nov. 3. The Commerce Department announced on Oct. 29 that the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation index, which excludes the volatile categories of food and energy and is the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, rose …