Price growth slowed its pace in April, with a key inflation gauge falling to a level well below analysts’ forecasts and fueling hopes that price pressures may be starting to dissipate.
The Commerce Department reported on May 27 that the headline Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, which is the inflation measure most closely watched by the Federal Reserve, rose by a monthly 0.2 percent in April, down from a blistering 0.9 percent pace of growth in March.
Analysts expected the monthly inflation gauge to show prices growing by 0.8 percent, with the fourfold slower pace coming as a welcome surprise.
So-called core PCE, which strips out the volatile categories of food and energy and is considered a better gauge of underlying price pressures, also slowed its year-over-year pace in April, though the month-over-month reading remained unchanged….