As recently as January, investors had high hopes that the Federal Reserve was about to embark on a rate-cutting campaign that would reverse some of the most aggressive policy tightening in decades. Three months of inflation data have brought those expectations back down to earth. March’s consumer price index report Wednesday helped verify worries that inflation is proving stickier than thought, giving credence to caution from Fed policymakers and finally dashing the market’s hopes that the central bank would be approving as many as seven rate cuts this year. “The math suggests it’s going to be hard near term to get ... (full story)