Powell cautions about reading too much into hot CPI reading

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cautioned against reading too much into data on Wednesday showing the largest acceleration in the Consumer Price Index in more than a year, while acknowledging it was substantially above forecasts.

"The CPI reading was above almost every forecast, but I just would offer ... two notes of caution," Powell said at a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee.

"One is we don't get excited about one or two good readings, and we don't get excited about one or two bad readings," Powell said. "The second thing, though, is we target PCE (personal consumption expenditures) inflation because we think it's simply a better measure of inflation. And so you need to know the translation from CPI to PCE, and we get more data on that tomorrow with the Producer Price Index," adding that "we'll know what the PCE reading is late tomorrow." (Reporting By Dan Burns; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)