The minutes of the most recent Federal Reserve (Fed) interest rate setting meeting, held on October 31 and November 1, showed that policymakers are still concerned that inflation could be stubborn or move higher, and that more action may need to be taken to bring inflation back to the central bank’s policy goal of two per cent.

Participants backed a strategy to “proceed carefully” on upcoming interest rate changes and base any further tightening on progress toward achieving their inflation goal. Policymakers unanimously agreed that it would be appropriate for policy to remain at a restrictive stance for some time until inflation is clearly and sustainably heading towards the Fed’s inflation objective. Meanwhile in the US, existing home sales fell to lowest level in more than 13 years in October as high borrowing costs and a shortage in supply of houses discouraged prospective buyers, according to data released on Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Sales of previously owned homes fell by 4.1 per cent in October to their lowest since August 2010.

Existing home sales, a measure of the change in the number of existing residential properties sold, fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.79 million in October from a revised September figure, which stood at 3.95 million, leading to a monthly decline of 2.2 per cent.

“Prospective home buyers experienced another difficult month due to the persistent lack of housing inventory and the highest mortgage rates in a generation,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun, said.

Finally, prices paid by German manufacturers fell for the fourth month in a row in October due to a sharp decline in energy prices, the German statistics office, Destatis, reported on Monday.

The producer price index (PPI) in Europe’s largest economy plummeted 11 per cent year-on-year in October, in line with expectations, on top of September’s 14.7 per cent decline.

The office highlighted that the 27.9 per cent yearly fall in energy prices as the main driver for October’s fall in overall producer prices. Excluding energy prices, the PPI was 0.2 per cent higher than the same month last year, according to Destatis. Compared with September, producer prices decreased by 0.1 per cent, it said.

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