February inflation: Consumer prices tick up more than expected

February's Consumer Price Index (CPI) print came in line with month-over-month expectations, rising 0.4% from January while rising 3.2% year-over-year above estimates of 3.1%. Core CPI — which excludes food and energy costs — moved up by 3.8% year-over-year against expectations of 3.7%.

Yahoo Finance Live breaks down the numbers of this morning's inflation data.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

SEANA SMITH: Welcome to Yahoo Finance Live. I'm Seana Smith alongside Brad Smith. We've got some breaking news on inflation data out this morning. The CPI print coming in month-over-month change a 4/10 of a percent that was in line with the survey's expectations. The core CPI print, Brad, coming in also at 4/10 of a percent. On a year-over-year basis, CPI headline number coming in at 3.2%, a bit hotter than what the survey had been expected at 3.1%.

Core CPI on a year-over-year basis coming in also just a bit hotter at 3.8%. So a bit hotter than what the forecasters had been expecting of 3.7%. But it is an improvement, a tick down from the prior reading that we got last month.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, interesting here, the index for shelter during February, it rose-- once again, it should not be a surprise-- that has been one of the stickier portions of inflation here even as we're watching the futures reaction. So perhaps a lot of this expected. The Dow still lower right now by about 2/10 of a percent. S&P 500 flat.

One of the other indexes here that's going to catch people's eye on the energy front, gasoline. Index for gasoline moved higher as well. Combined, those two indexes between shelter and gasoline contributed-- get this-- over 60% of the monthly increase in the index for the all items here. So the energy index rose about 2.3% over the month as all of the component indexes increased there as well. Index unchanged it seems like.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, exactly. And as we take a look at the futures reaction to this print, of course, going into it and what the conversation is going to be today is what exactly this means for the Fed and their timing of a potential rate cut. So another print here, at least at first look, a bit hotter than what forecasters had been expecting. You can obviously take that at least at face value right now, reading those headline numbers.

And maybe this makes it a bit more likely that the Fed is going to potentially push off that first rate cut. We could get a later cut than expected here. But again, that core CPI number coming in a bit higher than expected on a month-over-month basis that uptick of 4/10 of a percent. And then when you take a look at that year-over-year change at 3.8%.