In the United States, the annual inflation rate has slowed to 4.9% in April against 5.0% in March. A score that slightly exceeds the forecasts established by economists, the latter forecasting 5.0% according to the report on the CPI index of consumer prices carried out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and published on Wednesday morning.
Last week, the Federal Reserve suggested it could pause its long streak of rate hikes, even if US inflation holds. well above its target of 2%. For its part, the price of Bitcoin initially reacted positively with a 1% increase in the moments following the announcement, taking it above $28,000.
But the most important crypto-asset in the ecosystem then continued its descent that began at the start of the week and now shows a price of $26,911 according to data from CoinMarketCap. Regarding the month of April, the CPI rose by 0.4% above forecast expectations, unlike in March when this improvement was only 0.1%.
The basic CPI index (“core”), which excludes volatile elements such as food products and energy, emerged up 0.40% in April compared to forecasts. Furthermore, the annual rate for the core CPI index in April was 5.5% in line with expectations for a similar result. Note that for the month of March this score was set at 5.6%.
At its last meeting in May, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the US Federal Reserve has indicated that it is considering pausing its historic rate hike program, which has seen the central bank cut the benchmark federal funds rate from around 0% in early 2022. at the current target range of 5.0% to 5.25%.
Although this breakneck pace of rate hikes has failed to bring inflation down to the 2% target set by the Fedthe central bank also has its eyes on growing problems in the US banking system, which have led to the bankruptcy of a number of regional lenders, the most recent of which is the First Republic Bank.
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