UK and US inflation, Bank of Japan hints in focus By Proactive Investors

Proactive Investors – US and UK inflation figures will be the festive focus next week as financial markets keep rolling in the run-up to the Christmas holidays.

Eyes will turn to Japan, where there is inflation data and the Bank of Japan on Tuesday follows decisions from the counterparts in the US, Europe and UK in the past week.

While there are no policy changes expected, there may be come hints about an end to the current negative interest rate policy to come in the next meeting or two.

UK data

For the UK, inflation gauges are scheduled for Wednesday morning, following the Bank of England meeting this past week, where there was pushing back against any talk of interest rate cuts.

The BoE’s monetary policy committee cautioned that key indicators of UK inflation persistence remain elevated and that further tightening in policy could be required if evidence of more persistent inflationary pressures emerges, with the MPC continuing to judge that risks to inflation projections “skewed to the upside”.

For Wednesday’s , the market expects the headline annual rate to ease to 4.4% for November from 4.6% for the month before, while picks up to 0.2% from flat in October.

is seen softening to 5.5% from 5.7%, and to 0.2% on a month-on-month basis from 0.3%.

UK and UK retail sales releases are due on Friday, with the final GDP print for the third quarter confirming that the economy stagnated compared to the second quarter.

BoE speakers in the week include and , both of which have been voting to in recent meetings.

While the market has got very excited by some inflation and wage data in recent months, recently seeing predictions of BoE rate cuts brought forward significantly, the commentary from the MPC in the meeting should put a dampener on this, reckon economists at Bank of America (NYSE:).

“When markets price in earlier cuts as a result, financial conditions may ease too much, requiring more rate hikes or holding spot rates higher for even longer. We see the reference to next year’s minimum wage increase and downplaying news in wage growth and services inflation as the BoE attempted to reinforce is ‘table mountain’ preference: the bar for data to shift the position is very high,” they said.

US data

Also on Friday is perhaps the key releases of the week for the US, being personal income and spending along with , which remains a crucial figure the Fed is keeping an eye on, with the potential for rate cuts as soon as March getting markets excited this week.

It follows the inflation data in the past week and Fed meeting.

Deutsche Bank (ETR:) forecasts there will month on month growth in income, and core PCE staying at 0.2%.

There will also be the durable goods orders data that day, where estimates are for the core gauge to tick higher 0.1% on the month from -0.3% in October.

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