For a year that was supposed to eke out only modest equity gains, the S&P 500 is up an impressive 27% year-to-date (Chart 1). The return is even more notable given that the Federal Reserve has so far delivered on only 75-bps of policy easing, or considerably less than the 150-bps priced by futures markets for 2024 at the end of last year. And even though another quarter-point cut is universally expected next Wednesday CPI and PPI data out this week provided more evidence that progress on the inflation front is indeed stalling and will likely lead to a more gradual path of policy easing in 2025.

Headline CPI inflation accelerated by its fastest pace in seven months in November, pushing the twelve-month change to 2.7%, up from its three-year low of 2.4% in October. Meanwhile, core inflation rose at a similar pace to the prior three-months, though the composition of price pressures shifted somewhat. Services inflation cooled last month, owing to a notable deceleration in shelter costs, but this was offset by a sharp uptick in goods prices and firm readings on ‘supercore’ inflation.

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the core PCE deflator, is released next Friday. Mapping the CPI data into core PCE points to a ‘soft’ 0.3% m/m increase in November, pushing near-term trends higher (Chart 2). This is likely to unnerve FOMC members, who need to see further evidence of cooling inflationary pressures before committing to future rate cuts. This is a message that Fed Chair Powell is likely to telegraph at next week’s policy announcement.

The FOMC will also release a revised set of economic projections, which will provide insight on how policymaker’s view of the outlook and future path for the policy rate has shifted post-election. In the September projections, the median ‘dot’ assumed 100-bps of policy easing in 2025, or nearly double what’s currently reflected in futures pricing. However, core PCE inflation is running about 25 bps hotter than the 2.6% assumed in the last set of projections for the fourth quarter of this year. This suggests that the median dots for 2025 could shift a bit higher. But that’s by no means a guarantee, as each Committee member will make their own assumptions on scope, magnitude, and timing of potential policy changes under the incoming administration. This could very well lead to a wider dispersion in forecasts. 

This is exactly what happened in December 2016, following the last Republican sweep. Transcripts from those FOMC meetings show that roughly half of the FOMC members incorporated some degree of fiscal stimulus in their individual forecasts. So even though Powell is unlikely to speculate on the impact of potential policy changes during next week’s press conference, it’s very likely that some FOMC members will have baked in some impacts from tariffs and/or tax cuts into their revised projections. Given the policy uncertainties and the fact that recent inflation readings have shown that progress has stalled, we suspect that the FOMC will open the door to a ‘pause’ on rate cuts in January and shift to cutting rates at every other meeting in 2025 (see financial forecasts).