• Eurozone December inflation was revised down to 2.7% vs. the flash estimate of 2.8%. The core rate – ex food, energy, alcohol and tobacco – held at 1.6%. The slowdown in headline inflation from November was mainly driven by an energy base effect, which shaved 0.25pp off yearly CPI growth.

  • The inflation slowdown is bound to continue in January, when we expect headline CPI to settle at 2.6% yoy. We see core and energy inflation weakening, while food inflation should record a technical re-acceleration (mostly due to a base effect).

  • Recent EUR-USD weakness is pushing up the cost of fuels. The primary consequence is that we no longer expect eurozone headline inflation to drop below 2% in April (although this remains a close call). We now see the first sub-2% reading only in late 2012/early 2013.