An obscure price tracker closely followed by economists also suggests inflation is slowing, but perhaps not quite as fast as the best-known indexes.
The Dallas Federal Reserve’s “trimmed mean” inflation rate eased to 4.2% in the period running from June 2022 to June 2023 from 4.6% in the prior month.
That’s much higher than the 3% rate shown by the PCE index, the central bank’s favorite inflation gauge. And it’s a hair higher than the 4.1% core PCE rate produced by the government on Friday.
Just what is a trimmed mean inflation rate?
The Dallas Fed strips out goods and services that show the biggest ups and downs each month to give a better sense of underlying inflation trends.
Sometimes the headline inflation numbers can be exaggerated by big swings in the prices of certain goods such as gasoline, rent, airfares and so forth.
The yearly rate of trimmed mean inflation peaked at 4.8% in April.
The annualized trimmed mean inflation rate for the past six months, meanwhile, slipped to 4.1% from 4.4%. Good news, to be sure, but it showed that prices are still rising fast.
The Fed is aiming to restore inflation to 2% or less, similar to the rate that prevailed before the pandemic. The rate of inflation rose to as high as 9% last year, based on the widely known consumer price index.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
