Deflation - The economy will continue to be in deflation for most of the year and this means that the development of core inflation and inflation expectations will be key in convincing the FOMC that inflation will return to 2%.
Strong US dollar - This is having an increasingly negative impact on US exporters and is also exerting downward pressure on core inflation via lower import prices.
Rabobank notes its views as follows:
On the labour market front, underemployment remains elevated, wage growth depressed and the participation rate low. However, the difficulty in identifying whether this combination is caused by demographics, structural factors or is cyclical means that it is likely to have lost relevance for the 'first hike' debate.
