The annual rate of growth by core consumer prices in December was unchanged from the previous month at 1.6 percent. "The benign core inflation readings support our call that the Fed does not lift the policy rate from the effective lower bound until 2024 and begin QE tapering until 2023," said Kathy Bostjancic, Chief U.S. Financial Economist at Oxford Economics. On Friday, the Labor Department is scheduled to release a separate report on producer price inflation in the month of December.