Deutsche Bank: US core CPI likely to print +0.2% in January

Deutsche Bank research team suggests that for the January CPI report of the US, consensus is  expecting a print of +0.2% mom core reading, although base effects are expected to result in a small pullback in the annual rate to +2.1% yoy.

Key Quotes

“Seasonal revisions this week resulted in a slightly lower Jan 2018 reading which therefore makes for a lower hurdle to keeping yoy rate near recent levels.”

“Our US economists also highlight that Dec print was boosted by outsized gains in a few specific categories so it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see some payback. Another interesting point is that January prints have tended to be higher than in other months, suggesting some residual seasonality.”

“Over the past 5y, Jan prints have averaged about 5bps higher than the prints in the other months of the year, though the recent methodological revisions are supposed to reduce this discrepancy by around half. So a bit more uncertainty than usual in the numbers today.”