Inflation Figures/Price Indices

Rising used-car prices, which have been a big contributor to inflation over the past year, are starting to ease with dealers saying buyers are pushing back on what they are willing to spend.During the pandemic, prices for preowned vehicles climbed 45%, hitting an average of $29,969 at the end of last year and rising faster than those for brand-new vehicles, according to data from research-firm Edmunds. The climb has been driven in large part by a shortage of new vehicles, which have also surged in price and left buyers…

As aggressive as the path for U.S. monetary policy tightening appears right now, one Federal Reserve governor doesn’t believe the central bank faces a world as ugly as when it last confronted inflation this high. Because of that, the Fed doesn’t need to take the same steps as it did under former leader Paul Volcker, when he took extremely aggressive action to kill inflation, which in turn caused an extremely deep recession, Fed governor Christopher Waller said in a public appearance Tuesday.…

OTTAWA—Canada’s 12-year real-estate boom appears to be coming to an end following the Bank of Canada’s recent rate increases, which have triggered a sharp decline in residential sales and a slowdown in home-price gains.The slack in one of the Canadian economy’s main engines of growth illustrates the trade-offs faced in countries where central bankers are racing to douse red-hot inflation by raising interest rates. In Canada, the impact on housing carries extra weight, given the outsize role the sector has played in…

Mr. Powell’s nomination, scheduled for a Senate vote on Thursday afternoon, has been on track for months to win bipartisan approval despite unease over inflation and aggressive interest-rate increases that the Fed has urgently commenced to cool price pressures. President Biden said last fall he would reappoint Mr. Powell, opting for continuity as the scale of the central bank’s challenges in controlling inflation was becoming more evident. Mr. Powell, 69 years old, was tapped by President Donald Trump…

The bad news is that in April, for the second month in a row, inflation clocked in above 8%. The good news is that sometime in the next 12 months, it will very likely fall to around half that. This isn’t exactly a heroic forecast. Bottom-up analysis of the consumer-price index’s components, inflation-linked bond yields, and wage behavior all point toward inflation settling at roughly 4%.The more important question is what comes after that? The hope by many—including the Federal Reserve—is that it keeps heading down toward…

U.S. suppliers’ price increases slowed last month to 0.5% from 1.6% in March. Photo: George Frey/Getty Images…

Americans paid less for gasoline but more for groceries and air travel last month as the broader pace of inflation eased slightly but remained historically high. A fall in energy costs led the way toward the smaller overall gain, with gasoline prices dropping a seasonally-adjusted 6.1% in April, following a steep advance in crude-oil prices in March after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Groceries rose by 1% over March and were up 10.8% over the last 12 months, the largest 12-month increase…

Another strong inflation reading in April is likely to keep pressure on the Federal Reserve to continue raising rates in half-percentage-point increments at the central bank’s next two policy meetings and possibly beyond that.The rapid pace of U.S. inflation stayed strong last month, offering little reassurance to the Fed even though the year-over-year rate of growth slowed. On a monthly basis, the consumer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in April, according to a Labor Department report on Wednesday. Inflation…

Price increases that have put U.S. inflation at a four-decade high likely slowed in April as gasoline prices and supply-chain bottlenecks eased, economists say.The Labor Department on Wednesday is estimated to report that the consumer-price index rose 8.1% in April from the same month a year ago, decelerating from an 8.5% annual rate in March, according to economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. The CPI measures what consumers pay for goods and services. The figures are set to be released at 8:30 a.m. ET on…

HONG KONG—China’s consumer inflation edged up in April and factory-gate price pressures remained elevated as Covid-19 lockdowns jammed up logistics networks and the Ukraine war pushed up global energy prices.China’s consumer-price index in April was up 2.1% from a year earlier, official data showed Wednesday, the fastest pace in five months—accelerating from March’s 1.5% and topping the 2% median forecast of economists polled by the Journal. HONG KONG—China’s consumer inflation edged up in April and factory-gate price…