[UPDATE] Consumer prices rose 3.7% in the year to September, up from 3.4%, as increases spread beyond gasoline

Consumer prices rose 0.6% from August to September, the biggest monthly gain in five months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday, Oct. 14. Prices were 3.7% higher than a year earlier, up from 3.4% in August. Forecasters had expected 3.6%. The spread. Gasoline jumped 9.1% in the month and drove more than half the rise. Prices also climbed for services, clothing, airfares and medical care. Core inflation (everything but food and energy, the measure of the underlying trend) rose to 2.6% a year, from 2.4% in August, with a 0.3% monthly gain. The White House. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said there was "a whole bunch of good news in the report." He called the energy surge "temporary" and pointed to flat food prices and a 1.2% drop in prescription drug prices. (TS: core prices, which leave out energy, ran at a 3.4% annual pace over three months, per Axios) What next. The Federal Reserve meets Oct. 27–28. Traders now put the odds of a quarter-point rate hike (the Fed raising its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage point to slow price growth) at 47%, up from 22.1% before the report, per Axios. This was the last inflation report before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.