Inflation in the United States continues to decline ahead of the last US interest rate meeting this year.
The inflation rate for goods and services fell to 7.1 percent in November from 7.7 percent in October, the Labor Department said in Washington on Tuesday.
Experts polled by Reuters had expected a value of 7.3 percent.
It is the fifth straight decline and raises hopes that the US has passed the peak of the inflation wave.
Nevertheless, the inflation rate is still well above the Fed's target of 2.0 percent, which will again decide on the key interest rate on Wednesday.
She doesn't see the fight against inflation as won yet, but wants to scale back a little when it comes to raising interest rates.
For Wednesday, the financial markets have adjusted to an increase of half a percentage point - to a new key interest rate range of 4.25 to 4.50 percent.
The US monetary authorities had previously raised the key monetary policy rate by 0.75 percent four times in a row.
(Reuters Washington office, written by Reinhard Becker, edited by Christian Götz and Rene Wagner - If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com)