Here's when market experts think inflation will get back to normal
Sale signs at a grocery store and a person shopping at the store
A person shops in a grocery store as prices are displayed on October 12, 2023 in Los Angeles.Mario Tama/Getty Images
  • While many experts don't see inflation getting back to normal just yet, it could in a year or two.

  • Consumer price inflation has been mostly slowing this year.

  • J.P. Morgan Asset Management's David Kelly is one expert who sees inflation on track to being around the Fed's 2% target by the end of next year.

Inflation has been one of the biggest pain points in the economy for the last couple years, but the end may be in sight.

Some experts see inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index being around 2% — the Fed's target year-over-year rate of price growth — by some time in 2024.

The Consumer Price Index increased 3.2% year over year in October, far below the incredibly high 9.1% year-over-year increase in June 2022. October's increase is also a lower year-over-year rise than August's and September's.

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 4.0% in October from October 2022. That increase is not only just under the 4.1% increase in September, but it's the smallest rise since September 2021.

"Slower consumer demand, reduced housing rents, lower profit margins, easing wage growth and restrictive monetary policy represent the ideal disinflationary combo heading into 2024," Gregory Daco, EY's chief economist, said in recent commentary.

"We foresee headline and core CPI inflation around 2.2% y/y in Q4 2024," Daco said in his commentary.

David Kelly, chief global strategist of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, had similar thoughts in his commentary after the release of the CPI report on Tuesday.

"Overall, this report confirms that CPI inflation remains on a track to fall to close to 2% year-over-year by the fourth quarter of 2024 and that consumption deflator inflation still looks likely to fall below the Fed's 2% target over the same time frame," Kelly said.

An article from ING's James Knightley before the new CPI data was published said "we forecast headline inflation to be in a 2-2.5% range from April onwards with core CPI testing 2% in the second quarter."

Still, the third quarter Bankrate Economic Indicator Survey of experts and economists done in September found 41% said getting to the target inflation rate won't be the case "until at some point by the end of 2025," as stated by Sarah Foster's reporting for Bankrate on the results.

And the Fed's Summary of Economic Projections from September showed that the central bank's key decision makers predicted 2.5% inflation in their preferred Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index measure at the end of 2024, 2.2% for 2025, and 2.0% for 2026.