"forcefully" against soaring inflation in a battle that will be painful for American families and businesses.
Modest signs of slowing in the world's largest economy and easing price pressures spurred hope in financial markets that the central bank might ease up on its aggressive interest rate hikes, and perhaps even start to reverse course next year. But then they promptly slid lower, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite all dropping more than one percent.Sentiment had been boosted ahead of Powell's speech by the latest readings of the US personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed's preferred yardstick for inflation, which dipped 0.1 percent from in July from June, and slowed to 6.3 percent from 6.8 percent on an annual basis.
Europe's benchmark Dutch TTF gas contract dipped Friday one day after soaring to 324 euros per megawatt hour, not far from the record high struck in March after key gas producer Russia invaded Ukraine.