Key inflation data, Nike earnings, U.K. housing gloom - what's moving markets
Investing.com — The Federal Reserve's favorite gauge of inflation is due later Friday, while disappointing results from sports fashion retailer Nike will also be in focus. Wall Street is expected to post a positive month and quarter, but the U.K. housing market remains under pressure.
Both Jerome Powell and Christine Lagarde–the heads of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, respectively–were insistent at the ECB's annual gathering at Sintra that conquering inflation was key, and their job was not done yet.
Evidence of how much further they still have to go is likely to emerge Friday, with important inflation numbers emerging on both sides of the Atlantic.
The most important release will be the U.S. core personal consumption expenditures index the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, which is expected to rise 4.7% for the year and 0.3% for May.
This would be the same as April’s annual figure, proving inflation remains sticky and largely cementing expectations for another quarter of a percentage point interest rate hike, probably at the July meeting.
In Europe, Lagarde has already largely confirmed that the ECB will hike once more in July, and the release of the consumer price data for the whole eurozone will provide clues as to how many more rate increases are likely this year.
The June CPI figure came in at 5.5%, slightly better than expected and a fall from 6.1% last month. French inflation followed Spanish and Italian down to a 14-month low, while German consumer-price gains accelerated this month.
Nike (NYSE:NKE) is likely to be in the spotlight Friday, after the sportswear giant offered up a gloomy forecast for first-quarter revenue after the close Thursday, predicting that still-high inflation will
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