Is US inflation set to jump?

Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen has hinted at a rise in interest rates that could see a surge in US inflation.

Markets are now so in thrall to central banks that their every utterance, no matter how banal, vague or contradictory, is splashed across the press. Last week, the spotlight was on US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen. She "is not noted for her specificity", as Alastair Winter of Daniel Stewart puts it, but she actually said something quite interesting this time.

She thinks that the weak economic data of recent weeks will prove to be "transitory". Assuming the economy continues to strengthen, interest rates are likely to rise "at some point this year".US rates haven't risen in over a decade.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.