Europe & UK

UK Weak Economic Data Data showed average weekly earnings in three months to February were 2.8% higher than a year before. The rate is unchanged from a month before, and a two and a half year high, but below economists’ forecasts of an increase to 3%. Albeit a positive reading, being lower than the CPI reading of 2.9%, is raising questions about whether it justifies a rate hike form the Bank of England. Meanwhile, unemployment in the latest three month period unexpectedly fell to 4.2%, the lowest unemployment rate since the three months to May reading of 1975.

Inflation figure in Britain dropped from 2.7% to 2.5% for the month of March. The negative figure caused the cable to depreciated nearly 100 basis points versus the US dollar. The pull back in inflation may not prevent the central bank from increasing interest rates in May , yet the market dropped the probability of a hike from 88% to 55.7%.

Annual inflation rate was 1.3% in March and up from 1.1% in February, yet lower than the market’s expectation of 1.4%. This is the second month in a row where inflation has been revised down between the flash and the final release. Inflation in March was pushed up by the rise in services prices (services inflation went from 1.3% to 1.5%) due to Easter, which this year was earlier than in 2017. This affected transport services and package holidays in particular. Unprocessed food price inflation also reverted back into positive territory as the base effects from the bad weather at the beginning of last year that pushed up fruit and vegetable prices washed out.

Asia

In China, economic expansion held up amid robust consumer spending, underpinning global growth and giving authorities room to purge excessive borrowing, while the industrial sector showed signs of modest slowdown. Industrial production rose by 6% lower than the forecasted 6.3%, while GDP grew by 6.8% inline with the market’s expectations.

The consumer price index (CPI) increased 1.1% year on year in March, slowing from 1.5% in February. The slowdown in headline inflation was largely due to the ongoing normalization in fresh food prices. Indeed, fresh food prices dropped 4.8% monthly in March, decelerating the over-year-ago comparison to 6.3% yearly from 12.4% in February and 12.6% in January. As such, the BOJ’s preferred measure of core inflation, excluding fresh food and energy products, remained stable at 0.5% yearly in March.

Kuwait

Kuwaiti Dinar at 0.30015 The USDKWD opened at 0.30015 on Sunday morning.