Money Minute Friday 17 January: UK weakness likely to continue

This morning in the UK we get retail sales data for December. Recent data from the UK has been weak and this is likely to continue. That said, as research group Capital Economics points out, the official economic data releases in general will not show any evidence (or otherwise) of a post-election bounce until at least next month.

Over in the eurozone, we get the final reading on inflation across the region for December. The headline rate rose to 1.3% according to earlier estimates. That’s higher than expected and might increase the resistance of certain European Central Bank members to the idea of printing even more money in future.

And over in the US we get the latest industrial production figures for December. Manufacturing has been struggling generally around the world, with the US no exception. As a result, output is expected to stay flat or have fallen during the month.

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