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Breakdown of the latest developments on the global exchanges
Mar 11, 2019, 12:00 PM GMT
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Inflation Rates in the US

This week is going to be filled with various data releases in the US, including the monthly adjusted Core Retail Sales on Monday, the monthly adjusted Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Tuesday and the monthly Producer Price Index (PPI) on Wednesday. The data will be crucial for the US dollar for a number of reasons.

Firstly, last week the jobs presented a mixed back of convoluted data by registering only 20 000 new job openings in the US economy for the month of February that really disappointed but on the other hand the hourly earnings for the labour force have been increased, which is a good indication for an expected higher consumer spending.

These results are to e certain extent a consequence of the Government Shutdown from early 2019, which effects are still felt in the market. Employment data following inflation statistics are the two major determinants for the health of the economy and for that reason, any disappointments in the CPI and PPI reports from this week are going to put a strain on the greenback further. Secondly, it was only at the end of last month that the US and China's governments started to tone down their rhetoric on the trade war, which means that it is likely for the protectionist policies of Donald Trump to have impacted the national prices positively, giving a certain boost to the rate of inflation.

Finally, with considerations of the economic projections for the global output from the ECB last Thursday, certain parallels can be drawn between the EU's report and the case of US inflation. The projected inflation rate for the EU bloc was decreased with 0.5% for 2019, compared to the previous fiscal year, which is owing to the stagnation of global economic growth. For those reasons, there is a mixed picture about the inflation rate in the US, which is going to be a key determinant for local and global growth rates in the second quarter of 2019 and therefore it is really anticipated by the market. The FED is striving to strike a fine balance between lowering unemployment and a targeted inflation rate of 2%.