China: Disinflationary pressures emerge in July – UOB

Pablo Piovano FXStreet

UOB Group’s Economist Ho Woei Chen, CFA, reviews the latest inflation figures in China.

Key Takeaways

In line with expectation, China’s CPI headed into a negative reading for the first time since Feb 2021 while PPI registered its 10th straight month of price declines in Jul.

Having said that, the deflationary condition in China are likely to be mild and temporary. We expect China’s headline CPI to return to positive much sooner than the PPI, noting that headline CPI reversed its 5 straight month of m/m declines and core inflation has actually picked up in Jul.

Looking ahead, the severe floods in parts of China this month could put some upward pressure on food prices but sluggish external and domestic demand as well as the slack in the job market will still keep price pressures weak in general. This continues to support further easing of China’s monetary policy. As such, we further lower China’s headline inflation forecast for 2023 to 0.4% from previous projection of 0.8% (2022: 2.0%) and our PPI forecast to -3.1% from earlier call of -2.0% (2022: 4.1%).

Author

Pablo Piovano

FXStreet

Born and bred in Argentina, Pablo has been carrying on with his passion for FX markets and trading since his first college years.

EUR/USD keeps the bid bias just over 1.1800

EUR/USD has started the week on a positive foot, hovering around the 1.1800 region in the latter part of Monday’s session. The pair’s recovery comes on the back of a decent decline in the US Dollar, as investors keep their attention on the evolving US–EU trade relationship after President Trump’s announcement of sweeping global tariff hikes.

GBP/USD looks stuck around 1.3500 amid firm gains

GBP/USD is pushing further north on Monday, revisiting the 1.3500 hurdle and beyond. Cable’s uptick is largely being fuelled by the broader softness in the Greenback, amid lingering uncertainty around tariffs.

Gold pops above $5,200, four-week highs

Gold is holding onto its bullish tone on Monday, reaching new multi-week highs just past the $5,200 mark per troy ounce. Fresh trade-war concerns, coupled with rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, are keeping demand for the yellow metal well on the rise.

Crypto Today: Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP intensify sell-off as tariff uncertainty weighs

Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple are trading amid increasing selling pressure at the time of writing on Monday, as investors react to fresh trade uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s push for more tariffs.

Supreme Court nixes tariffs, Trump teases 15% global tariff

On February 20th, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s global tariffs under IEEPA authority were unconstitutional, effectively nullifying the framework. However, the relief was short-lived. Within hours, Trump floated a 15% blanket tariff under an alternative legal authority.

XRP recovers slightly as bearish sentiment dominates crypto market

Ripple is rising above $1.40 at the time of writing on Monday amid fresh tariff-triggered headwinds in the broader cryptocurrency market. The sell-off to $1.33, the token’s intraday low, can be attributed to macroeconomic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and risk-averse sentiment among other factors.