The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index experienced a 0.25% uptick in April. The 12-month change was 2.75%, which is a three-year low.
This is in line with analysts’ expectations, which is why Bitcoin’s reaction is somehow muted. The largest cryptocurrency is currently trading at $67,446 after failing to hold above the $68,000 level.
Jeroen Blokland, founder of the Blokland Smart Multi-Asset Fund, has suggested that the members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) should already start their rate-cutting engines.
However, former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Roger Ferguson has suggested that the Federal Reserve might hike rates again if inflation continues to persist.
If in fact inflation stays at 2.7%, maybe gets to 2.6% but doesn’t seem to be coming down, maybe it will be time to think about raising rates once again,” says former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Roger Ferguson.
According to the latest PCE report, medical care, housing, and travel remain the key drivers of inflation.
At the same time, consumer spending is already showing some signs of stress. It actually experienced a small decline if inflation was taken into account.
Capital Economics says that a 0.1% decline in real consumption was a real surprise. It has now decreased its GDP forecast to just 1.2%.
“Our forecast for second-quarter consumption growth goes from 3.5% to only 2.1% .. [and] our forecast for second-quarter #GDP growth, which was as high as 2.7% a couple of weeks ago, is now only 1.2%.”
