Italian preliminary inflation accelerates sequentially in January, slows down year-on-year

The Italian consumer price index accelerated on a sequential basis in January. According to preliminary estimate, the headline inflation came in at 0.1 percent in the month. On a year-on-year basis, the inflation slowed to 0.9 percent from 1.1 percent in the prior month.

The year-on-year slowdown was mainly driven by prices of both regulated and non-regulated energy products, partially mitigated by the acceleration of prices of services related to transport and, to a lesser extent, of unprocessed food. Therefore, core inflation, excluding energy and unprocessed food was 0.5 percent and inflation excluding energy came in at 0.6 percent.

Meanwhile, the sequential rise was driven by prices of unprocessed food, which rose 1.3 percent. This only partly countered the fall of non-regulated energy products and of services related to transport, the latter mainly because of seasonal factors.

The annual rate of change of goods prices eased to 0.6 percent and that one of prices of services came in at 1.1 percent. As a consequence, the inflationary gap between services and goods was positive and equal to 0.5 percentage points.

According to preliminary estimates, the Italian harmonized index of consumer prices fell 1.7 percent sequentially, on winter sales of clothing and footwear. On a year-on-year basis, the HICP inflation rose 0.9 percent, a deceleration from the prior month.

At 13:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Euro was neutral at 20.1596, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was highly bullish at 108.959. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex