It was the usual doom and gloom when I opened the paper this morning. The Bank of England predicts a protracted slowdown. It’s revised its growth forecast for next year to 1.5%, down from a 2009 forecast of 2.8% made last year.
The core US inflation rate or Producer Price Index (PPI) — a measure of the prices of goods excluding food and energy — rose 0.4% in April, double the increase forecast by economists.
This puts the core US inflation rate up 3% in the past year, the biggest year-over-year rise since late 1991.
The PPI figures are unlikely to affect the markets which, according to a report by MarketWatch, “don’t seem to trust the government’s inflation figures that show falling energy prices in a world of record crude oil prices.”