While all eyes will be on Fed Chair Jerome Powell's testimony before Congress this week, investors would be wise to keep an eye on the October CPI report for the latest on U.S. inflation.
What's happening: The Fed's favored measure of inflation, core personal consumption expenditures, has consistently fallen short of the central bank's 2% target this year, the BLS' inflation metric — the core consumer price index — has been at or above that number every month this year and solidly above 2% since July.
Why it matters: The Fed's three interest rate cuts this year have buoyed investor enthusiasm for stocks and other risky assets. If inflation begins moving meaningfully higher in the CPI report, the Fed may need to reverse course on those rate cuts to fend off inflation.
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