Official reports have confirmed that inspite of the growing worries about an imminent hike in inflation; consumer prices hardly managed to budge during December, and continued to fall all throughout 2009, to record the first yearly slip in over half a century.

Released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the very latest report on consumer price index has further managed to fuel the speculation that the Fed officials would be sticking to their policy of keeping interest rates at a near zero value for "an extended period", during the policy review meeting that is scheduled for later this month.

"The Fed is correct in its analysis of inflation, and should be more worried about unemployment than inflation at this stage of the game", Diane Swonk, Chief Economist at Mesirow Financial, said.

For the month of December, consumer prices managed to hike by a mere 0.1% as compared to November, and these were up by 2.7% compared to last year. Taking out food and energy prices, however, which are anyways ever-changing, consumer prices were up by a slight 1.7% during the year.

"It's good news for consumers; inflation was low", said Nigel Gault, an economist at IHS Global Insight.