White House economic advisor Cecilia Rouse sounded upbeat on Friday when she told CNBC that the November inflation print could be ahead of inflation deceleration in the first half of next year.
“I think that inflation will come down over the coming months,” Rouse, who serves as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said after’s Friday’s CPI release.
“Obviously, that will depend on a number of things,” she added. “But as we work hard to get vaccinations in arms, as we vaccinate the rest of the world, the economies around the world will heal and we will see inflation pressures ease.”
The optimism about the odds of inflation moderation wasn’t unique to Democrats.
Tony Fratto, a Treasury Department official in the George W. Bush administration, said he thinks it’s a good thing that the inflation data met expectations.
“I think before the print, people were worried about getting a bad surprise,” he said. “It nailed the expectations.”
“There are very good reasons to believe that inflation is going to moderate into 2022. Because of the withdrawal of fiscal support, the tapering, the adjustments on the supply chain issues,” he continued. “In six or seven months, we’re not going to be talking about inflation the way we’re talking about inflation today.”
U.S. stocks, which typically don’t like hotter inflation, appeared to shrug off inflation’s fastest pace since 1982. The SP 500 was up 0.62% in afternoon trading.
“I think I find some comfort, even if it’s just a little bit, that it hasn’t gone significantly higher, that it’s in line with expectations right now,” said Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist at Ally Invest. “I think that the fact that we’re not making significant jumps, month over month, it feels like we’re stabilizing.”
Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/10/inflation-report-was-probably-best-the-white-house-could-have-hoped-for.html