Yellen urges markets to read CPI data with caution

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she is not reading too much into October’s inflation report, which showed price pressures narrowing faster than expected and sent markets soaring.

While the consumer price index report, which showed annual inflation slowed to 7.7%, was good news, it might not mean that inflation is now in fast retreat, she said Friday.

“I don’t know if this is a turning point,” Yellen told Reuters during an interview from India, where she was meeting with India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. “I never make more of one data point. That is one data point.”

“It was certainly nice to see an inflation report that came in on the low side of expectations rather than the high side and, you know, we’ve seen early indications along the pipeline that inflation might be diminishing,” she added.

Thursday’s data also revealed that “core inflation,” which strips out volatile food and energy prices, eased by three-tenths of a percentage point to 6.3%.

In separate remarks to reporters on Friday, Yellen stressed that shelter costs, including rents, make up a third of the consumer price index and will continue to cause strain on consumers’ pocketbooks heading into next year. Still, she said that the fact that core inflation declined is a good sign for the economy.