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.







