The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday, Jan. 28, edition that Federal Reserve policy makers are finally seeing some sustained progress in sapping high inflation, cementing their plan to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point this week, with traders betting they will end their hiking campaign in March. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that the Fed's preferred gauge for inflation, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, rose 5 per cent in December from a year earlier, slower than the 5.5-per-cent, 12-month gain as of November, the government reported on Friday, and the lowest level since September, 2021. Core PCE rose 4.4 per cent from a year earlier, the slowest pace since October, 2021. In the most recent three-month average it increased around 3.2 per cent on an annualized basis. That cooling has traders betting the Fed will soon wind down its most aggressive policy tightening since the 1980s, designed to dampen demand across the economy in a bid to bring inflation, which surged to a 40-year high last year, back down to its 2-per-cent target rate. Reuters says traders in the last week have firmed up their bets on rate cuts starting as soon as September.