Key Fed inflation measure rose 0.4% in January as expected, up 2.8% from a year ago

[Igel]

7. It's the effect of averaging.

0.1% in 12/23 v 0.4% in 1/24 isn't a decrease. What happened is that some of the large increases in 12/22 are now out of the 12-month window for the annual average.

Now, is this a one-month uptick or a longer trend? That requires the gift of prophecy--not in the modern sectarian sense of "inspired preaching on any topic" but in the longer, 3000-year-old tradition of "speaking accurately about events that are yet so far in the future as to not be predictable given the usual means."