Down the road

Question: What is Federated Hermes' outlook for inflation in the remainder of 2024?

Phil Orlando: There's no question that inflation peaked at 40-year highs in the middle of calendar '22, and they've come down sharply over the course of the last 18 to 24 months. But as the base effects have rolled off on those inflation metrics, and have been replaced with accelerating trends with food, housing, energy, electricity, insurance costs, inflation in some instances has gone up, in others has remained very sticky and persistent. So our view overall is that the economy is slowing into a soft landing, but the trajectory of inflation is such that it's going to be another couple of years before the Federal Reserve is comfortable that we've achieved their 2% inflation objective.