The National Association of Purchasing Management's price index has been hovering around the 50 mark for most of the past year, indicating that roughly the same percentage of buyers are reporting higher prices as lower ones. This year's CPI performance has come as a bit of a surprise to inflation forecasters, including the Federal Reserve. A key question facing the FOMC is whether this year's unexpectedly low CPI increase is the beginning of a new, lower inflation trend , or merely a transitory dip in the data that will ultimately turn upward again. Consider the most recent 12-month period . The rise in the median CPI since last year has exceeded the downward-moving CPI by 0.4 percentage point.
Historical experience favors the former.