WASHINGTON — (AP) — Annual inflation may have risen in October for the first time in seven months, a sign that price increases might be leveling off after steadily cooling for more than two years.
Consumer prices are thought to have increased 2.6% from 12 months earlier, according to a survey of economists by the data provider FactSet, up from 2.4% in September. Measured month to month, prices are believed to have ticked up 0.2% from September to October, the same as in the previous month.
Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core prices are forecast to have risen 3.3% from a year earlier, unchanged from the previous month. From September to October, core prices are expected to have risen 0.3% for a third straight month — a pace that, if sustained, would exceed the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target.
An uptick in prices could fuel concerns in financial markets that progress in taming inflation might …