US Markets Highlights: US inflation picked up last month as prices rose for gas, eggs, and used cars, yet underlying price pressures also showed signs of easing a bit. Wednesday’s (January 15) report from the Labor Department showed that the consumer price index rose 2.9% in December from a year ago, the highest since July. It was the third straight increase after inflation fell to a 3 1/2-year low of 2.4% in September.

Yet excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core inflation declined to 3.2%, after remaining stuck at 3.3% for three months in a row. The slowdown in core price increases comes as a relief as many economists and investors have worried that inflation has gotten stuck above the Fed’s 2% target, after a steady decline in prices in 2023 and for much of last year.