Eurozone Inflation Pickup Affirmed. Next Up, the FOMC Meeting Minutes

Following economic data for the Eurozone on Tuesday, inflation figures were in focus this morning.

Eurozone Inflation

In April, the annual rate of inflation picked up from 1.3% to 1.6%, which was in line with prelim figures. A year earlier, the annual rate of inflation had been 0.3%.

According to Eurostat,

• The lowest annual rates of inflation were registered in Greece (-1.1%), Portugal (-0.1%), and Malta (+0.1%).
• Luxembourg registered the highest annual rate inflation at 3.3%.

The highest contribution to the annual euro area rate of inflation came from:

• Energy (+0.96 percentage points)
• Services (+0.37 pp)
• Food, alcohol, & tobacco (+0.16 pp)
• Non-energy industrial goods (+0.12 pp)

The annul core rate of inflation softened from 0.9% to 0.7%, however, which worse than a forecasted annual core rate of inflation of 0.8%.

In the month of April, consumer prices rose by a further 0.6%, which was in line with forecasts. In March, consumer prices had risen by 0.9%.

Market Impact

Ahead of the numbers the EUR had risen to a pre-stat and current day high $1.22453 before falling to a pre-stat and current day low $1.22048.

In response to today’s stats, the EUR rose to a post-stat high $1.22205 before falling to a post-stat low $1.22139.

At the time of writing, the EUR was down by 0.05% to $1.22157.

Next Up

The FOMC Meeting Minutes…