The U.S. CPI data for January will be released at 9:30 p.m. Beijing time on February 14. Economists expect the CPI to rise 6.2 percent in January from a year earlier in 2022, slightly down from December’s 6.5 percent year-on-year rise. On February 12, Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate in economics, tweeted that the U.S. economy is still in an unsustainable hot state, and the inflation rate has dropped sharply, but it will still be higher than the target.
As one of the main indicators to measure inflation, CPI data will provide more clues to the Fed’s policy path next, and will also have a major impact on the trend of risky assets. Since the second half of last year, the announcement of inflation data can often cause a 2% intraday index fluctuation in US stocks.
In a Feb. 13 interview, Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Dreyfus and Mellon, said this month’s data would be worse than the previous three months. He also believes that the CPI is just one piece of the puzzle that the Fed uses to construct its outlook, and that the Fed’s policy decisions depend on the overall outlook rather than a month’s worth of data.
US CPI strikes tonight! Economist: CPI is just a piece of the Fed’s puzzle. Click on the video to see it!