🇺🇸August consumer prices rose 3.4% year-over-year and 0.4% month-over-month; core prices increased 0.3% monthly, exceeding the 0.2% forecast.

Headline and core inflation showed different monthly and annual patterns. August headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation was 3.4% year-over-year, unchanged from the previous reading, while monthly inflation accelerated to 0.4% from 0.1%. Core CPI, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3% monthly against a 0.2% forecast and previous reading, but its annual increase slowed to 2.4% from 2.5%.

Gasoline and housing contributed to the headline monthly increase. The supplied breakdown reports a 3.9% monthly increase in gasoline prices, contributing more than one-third of the overall rise. Housing costs increased 0.3%, their largest monthly gain in three months.

Communications prices were a notable component of core inflation. Wireless telephone-service prices rose 5.9% in August, contributing approximately 0.1 percentage point to core CPI; airfares, used vehicles and education prices also contributed. Computer software and accessories prices increased 25.4% year-over-year, described in the supplied reporting as a record increase for that category—not a measure of GPU or server prices.

The immediate market response was a repricing of interest-rate expectations. Financialjuice reported that traders assigned approximately a 90% probability to a Federal Reserve increase the following week, compared with approximately 70% before the release, and fully priced two increases by year-end. These figures describe contemporaneous market pricing, not an announced Federal Reserve decision.