Inflation held steady in February as expected

US inflation held steady in February as economists expected, with prices rising 2.4% over the year, new consumer price index data showed.

The Federal Open Market Committee members will meet next week to decide on interest rates for the second time this year. They held rates steady in January, and experts and traders expect the same outcome this month.

There’s nearly a 100% chance of another hold based on CME FedWatch, which shows market-based chances of the Fed’s decision, before the CPI report. Data published on Friday showed that an unexpectedly weak February jobs report didn’t move the chances much. The US lost 92,000 jobs last month, with net losses of over 20,000 in the healthcare sector and leisure and hospitality.

Healthcare’s decline was a reversal of its previous strength that had helped support the job market, and employment in the sector was lower because of a Kaiser Permanente strike.

“It’s certainly a difficult time for job seekers right now because we are seeing that employers are just hiring a lot less than they did a couple years ago,” Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Business Insider.

The new consumer price index data doesn’t reflect the oil shock due to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but economists expect the effects of the Iran War to show up in the next report.

“It’s pretty safe to say that barring some really surprising reversal here, we’re going to see a pretty decent increase in the March CPI,” Michael Feroli, chief US economist at J.P. Morgan, told Business Insider. “Then April and beyond, I think, are more open to debate.”

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