The U.S. Heads For Soft Landing

Last month, prices fell for the first time since April 2020, according to a closely watched report released Friday by the Commerce Department.

U.S. inflation slowed further in November, and consumer spending continued to outpace expectations, lending further credence to the idea that the U.S. Federal Reserve could stick its “soft landing” of bringing down inflation with a barrage of interest rate hikes while not throttling the economy into a recession.

November’s Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, a comprehensive measure of prices U.S. households pay for goods and services, declined 0.1% from the month before, bringing the annual inflation rate to 2.6%.