What does the latest inflation shocker from the US mean for your money?

US inflation has hit another fresh 40-year high and it’s unlikely to be going away any time soon, despite the best efforts of the Federal Reserve. With markets already predicting a recession, John Stepek explains what it all means for you.

US supermarket
Prices in the US rose at an annual rate of 9.1% in June
(Image credit: © FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

At first, surging inflation was “transitory”. Then it went on too long to be transitory. So the word “transitory” was dropped (officially, by the Federal Reserve) around the end of last year.

However, markets still haven’t given up hope.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.