US CPI Preview: Inflation looked anemic outside of hurricane effects - Wells Fargo

Analysts from Wells Fargo, expect the US CPI  reading on Wednesday to show a 0.1% rise in October, in line with market expectations and below the 0.5% increase registered in September. 

Key Quotes: 

“Higher gas prices pushed the CPI up 0.5 percent in September, as was widely expected. The combination of refinery outages caused by Hurricane Harvey and Florida’s mass evacuation from Hurricane Irma caused a 13.1 percent spike in gasoline prices, which accounted for about three-quarters of the CPI increase in September. Inflation looked pretty anemic outside of the hurricane effects, however.”

“Excluding food and energy, the trend in the core CPI remained weak. Core CPI rose 1.7 percent over the year, remaining short of the FOMC’s 2 percent target. September’s inflation readings counted another month without the long-awaited pickup in inflation that should be in the offing given other fundamentals in the economy. It is still widely expected that the Fed will go ahead with increasing the fed funds rate in December, however.”