The Fed’s favorite buzzkill
Austan Goolsbee popped up on Power Lunch and did what central bankers do best: tried to sound calm while basically saying, “Yeah, inflation is still kind of annoying.” His main gripe? Services inflation, which tends to be stickier than the stuff you grab at the supermarket or pump into your tank.
Why services matter
If you’re looking for the Fed’s next move, this is the sort of comment traders obsess over. Services prices are the slow-burning campfire version of inflation — less flashy than goods, but way harder to stomp out. That means the Fed may stay cautious about cutting rates too quickly, even if other parts of inflation look friendlier.
What investors should take from it
This wasn’t a policy bombshell, more like a reminder that the Fed’s job isn’t done just because headline inflation cooled at one point. The market still has to wrestle with:
- sticky services prices
- the pace of potential rate cuts
- the chance that the Fed keeps talking tough before it acts soft
Big picture: if you were hoping for a straight-line march to cheaper money, Goolsbee just tossed a little sand in the gears.