UK inflation hits new 40-year high

[MongiIG]

Another rise in food and energy costs has driven UK inflation to levels not seen since 1981. The Bank of England is already on a mission to arrest this climb in prices, but GBP seems to be factoring in the downside to the economy.

 Jeremy Naylor | Writer, London | Publication date: Wednesday 16 November 2022

Inflation soars

UK inflation has hit a new headline rate of a 40-year high. These are October numbers and will be a fresh blow to families trying to battle against the rising cost of living.

Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose by 16.4% in the 12 months through to October 2022, up from 14.6% in September. Energy bills rose in October despite the government decision to cap the annual amount paid by the average household at £2500. Now, this is all the highest since September 1977, according to the data out today.

The rise has been anticipated by the Bank of England (BoE) in its latest quarterly monetary policy report. Thread needle Street said inflation would remain high and only fall back to 10% in the first three months of 2023. Retail prices rose by a margin of 14.2% in October. Producer price is up a little bit higher than that of 14.8%.

GBP/USD

Now let's take a look at what's been happening with the foreign exchange markets. This is GBP/USD.

Now, the US dollar, as we know, has been pulling back and indeed in yesterday's session we had a print above the 120 level. I want to show you what's been happening in ten minute candles. So you've got an idea as the effects of this rise in the price of inflation.

Now, this is going to likely see a continuation of the hawkishness we've seen from the Bank of England at its last meeting of the year, which occurs in the second week of December. Currently trading at 1852. So not much of a trade around what's happening with sterling against the US dollar apart from that little bit of a pullback.

GBP/EUR

This is the euro at the moment. We're down at one 11417. So in fact, I think at the moment at least, let me show you the ten minute candles on this. You can see in fact it was a bigger move against the euro.

So sterling on the way down against the euro. But the last ten or 15 minutes or so has pulled back again to 11416.

So there's not an awful lot in terms of the move at the moment for the sterling trade as we continue to see the monitoring of this inflation data, that's the highest in 40 years.