Money Minute Wednesday 15 January: UK inflation and house prices

Good morning and welcome to Money Minute, where we preview the day’s biggest financial stories. In the UK, we get consumer price inflation data for December. Analysts expect the headline figure to come in at just 1.5%. That’s well below the Bank of England target of 2%. This helps to explain why the UK’s central bank suddenly sounds quite keen to cut interest rates from their already low level of 0.75%.

We also get the latest official data on UK house prices. The government’s figures are for November, so date from before the recent general election. As such, they are likely to show house prices as flat or falling.

Over in the eurozone, we get German GDP figures for 2019. Analysts expect GDP growth to come in at 0.6% for the entire year, dragged down by a particularly weak second half. That compares to growth of 1.5% in 2018.In the US, we get producer price inflation for December. This shows how fast costs are rising for businesses. At some point, these costs will have to be passed onto consumers.For now though, ‘pipeline’ inflation appears to be tame.