Eurozone: Key economic events ahead - HSBC

Analysts at HSBC provide a brief list of macro events that are lined up for release from the Euroland.

Key Quotes:

“HICP inflation (Jan, flash)

Eurozone inflation surprised to the downside in December, falling by 0.1pp to 1.4% y-o-y.

Core inflation remained stuck at 0.9% y-o-y for the third month in a row, while services inflation stayed at 1.2% y-o-y.

Looking ahead, base effects from energy and last year's bad weather (which pushed up food prices) should drag headline inflation lower in early 2018. We expect headline inflation to stay at 1.4% y-o-y in January and fall slightly in February, before rising again.

We think core inflation will increase by 0.2pp to 1.1% y-o-y in January. This is partly due to base effects in social protection prices and a rise in airfares following the recent rise in oil prices.

Unemployment rate (Dec)

The Eurozone unemployment rate fell 0.1pp to 8.7% in November, the lowest rate since January 2009. This decline was reflected across the Big 4: France and Italy saw their unemployment rates decrease by 0.1pp to 9.2% and 11.0%, respectively, while Germany's ILO unemployment rate reached a new all-time low of 3.6%.

For December, the employment component of the composite PMI was unchanged at 55.7 from November, but it remains at very elevated levels.

We expect the Eurozone unemployment rate to stay at 8.7% in December.”