NEW YORK: US core inflation still has room to decline from a stronger dollar and lingering effect from the recent collapse in crude prices, a Goldman Sachs economist wrote in a research note published on Wednesday.

The core index of the government's consumer price index that excludes volatile food and prices will likely bottoming at 1.5 percent in the middle of the year before gradually increasing in the second half of 2015, Goldman economist Kris Dawsey wrote. He added the year-over-year rate on the core personal consumption expenditure, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, will likely be 1.2 percent in the second and third quarter before edging up in the fourth quarter.

Copyright Reuters, 2015