US inflation surprisingly falls to 7.1 percent

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Shopping mile in New York City: prices continue to rise, but not quite as fast

Photo Credit: IMAGO/JOHN ANGELILLO/IMAGO/UPI Photo

A small ray of hope for the US Federal Reserve: Inflation in the United States continues to fall.

The inflation rate for goods and services fell to 7.1 percent in November from 7.7 percent in October, the Labor Department in Washington said.

Experts surveyed by the Reuters news agency had expected a figure of 7.3 percent.

It is the fifth straight decline and raises hopes that the US has passed the peak of the inflation wave.

Nevertheless, the rate of inflation is still far above the target of 2.0 percent set by the US Federal Reserve, which will decide on the base rate at its last interest rate meeting of the year on Wednesday.

She doesn't see the fight against inflation as won yet, but wants to scale back a little when it comes to raising interest rates.

For Wednesday, the financial markets have adjusted to an increase of half a percentage point - to a new key interest rate range of 4.25 to 4.50 percent.

The US monetary authorities had previously raised the key monetary policy rate by 0.75 percent four times in a row.

The US dollar fell across the board after the numbers.

US Treasury yields also came under pressure.

Because the weakening of inflation is likely to strengthen the US Federal Reserve in its intention to raise key interest rates less significantly than recently.

The next interest rate decision is due this Wednesday.

mic/Reuters/dpa