Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day

Fresh inflation concerns, oil release underwhelms, and Covid surges again.

The latest inflation newsflow: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell pledged to use the bank’s policy tools to stop higher inflation from becoming entrenched. European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos warned that the factors stoking inflation are starting to be more structural. Wall Street banks projected average inflation in Latin America will end the year above 10% with more to come in 2022. Meanwhile, the supply-chain mess continues as raw material costs rise again. With all this in mind, there will be a close focus on this morning’s PCE data, with the core deflator — the Fed’s preferred inflation measure — expected to accelerate to 4.1%.