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Simplemente regístrese en el UK Inflation myFT Digest — entregado directamente a su bandeja de entrada.
La inflación en el Reino Unido cayó menos de lo pronosticado a 2.3 por ciento en abril, a pesar de la caída de los precios de la energía, lo que afectó las expectativas del mercado de que el Banco de Inglaterra reducirá las tasas de interés en su próxima reunión.
La subida del índice de precios al consumidor fue superior al 2.1 por ciento pronosticado por el BoE y los economistas encuestados por Reuters, mientras que la inflación de servicios — que el BoE está observando de cerca — también superó las expectativas.
La cifra principal fue la más baja desde julio de 2021 y bajó desde el índice de marzo del 3.2 por ciento.
Fue aplaudido por el Primer Ministro Rishi Sunak como una señal de que el Reino Unido está ganando su batalla contra la inflación antes de las elecciones generales que se esperan este año. Dijo que la caída en la tasa principal “marca un momento importante para la economía, con la inflación de regreso a la normalidad”.
However, economists said the higher than expected reading meant the chances of a rate reduction at the June 20 meeting of the BoE Monetary Policy Committee had diminished. The MPC has argued it needs more evidence that price pressures are receding before it cuts rates from their current 16-year high of 5.25 per cent.
The pound rose 0.4 per cent against the dollar to $1.2755 after the Office for National Statistics release.
Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said the headline reading was “within striking distance” of the BoE’s 2 per cent target, but added: “This may still not be enough to convince more cautious MPC members to commit to a rate cut in June, especially while wage growth remains elevated and economic growth momentum is strong.”
Markets lowered the probability of a June quarter point rate cut from 50 per cent to 15 per cent, with a rate reduction by September now only priced at a chance of around 80 per cent.
Investors are now evenly split on whether the BoE will deliver one or two quarter point cuts by the end of the year, having fully priced two cuts before the inflation data was released.
The BoE’s policymakers had predicted a steep fall in inflation owing to a reduction in the regulatory cap on household energy bills last month.
Data on the level of services prices will be a key factor, because the BoE sees these as an important gauge of the strength of domestic pricing pressures.
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The ONS reported that year-on-year services price growth was 5.9 per cent in April, below the 6 per cent reading for March. However, that was well above the 5.5 per cent rate of services price inflation predicted by economists and by the BoE in its latest round of forecasts.
Tomasz Wieladek, economist at T Rowe Price, said the continued strength of services inflation meant the MPC would probably keep rates on hold for now.
“Services CPI inflation is the best gauge of underlying inflation and this remains uncomfortably high,” he said. “The data today clearly show that markets were too optimistic about a June cut and remain too optimistic about BoE cuts this year.”
Core inflation was 3.9 per cent, above a prediction of 3.6 per cent by economists polled by Reuters. That was down from 4.2 per cent the previous month.