What now? Continued Federal Reserve interest-rate increases for as far as the eye can see? Those are the primary questions with the last inflation target standing essentially hitting the central bank’s 2 percent bullseye. The core personal-consumption-expenditures price index (PCE), a broad measure of inflation that excludes food and energy, rose 1.98 percent in July from a year earlier. The core PCE has long been the gentlest measure of inflation, so for many economists the evidence that it’s catching up to every other similar metric, such as the widely recognized consumer price index, that have long since pierced 2 ... (full story)