The release of British and Canadian inflation data later today will send markets evidence as to whether global inflation rates are peaking.
- Today will bring releases of CPI (inflation) data in the UK and Canada. The data may cause volatility in the GBP and CAD, and will be closely watched for clues as to the progress of inflation in the most developed economies. UK inflation is expected to reach an annualized rate of 9.1%, while Canadian inflation is expected to have increased by 0.5% month on month.
- The Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, stated yesterday that the Fed will continue to raise rates until inflation declines, and that if the Fed has to move beyond a “neutral” monetary policy, it will.
- In the Forex market, the US Dollar is recovering after selling off yesterday, especially against the commodity currencies AUD, NZD, and CAD.
- Major cryptocurrencies are looking bearish again after recovering from technically significant breakdowns last week. However, Bitcoin/USD has a strong key support level at $28,607 which continues to hold.
- US Retail Sales data came in slightly lower than expected, but the Core data was above expectations, suggesting nothing unexpected is really happening to US consumer demand.
- Australian Wage Price data came in slightly lower than expected, which perhaps dampens Australian inflation expectations a little.
- Later today there will be a release of Australian Unemployment data.
- Daily new coronavirus cases globally fell last week for the eighth consecutive week.
- It is estimated that 65.7% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination, while approximately 6.6% of the global population is confirmed to have contracted the virus at some time, although the true number is highly likely to be much larger.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 524.1 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.20%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing only in Costa Rica, Jamaica, Australia, Barbados, Dominica, Panama, Portugal, South Africa, and Taiwan.
