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Eurozone inflation on track for 2024 target return

04 août 2023 par Simon Ward

Eurozone CPI numbers for July were deemed disappointing because annual core inflation – excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco – stalled at 5.5%. 

Or did it? The annual rise in the ECB’s seasonally adjusted core series slowed to 5.3%, below the consensus forecast of 5.4% for the Eurostat unadjusted measure. The two gauges rarely diverge to this extent (they both recorded 5.5% inflation in June). 

The six-month rate of increase of the ECB series eased to 4.7% annualised in July, the slowest since June 2022 and down from a December peak of 6.2%. Six-month headline momentum was lower at 3.4%. 

As in the UK, six-month headline inflation is tracking a simplistic “monetarist” forecast based on the profile of broad money momentum two years earlier – see chart 1. This relationship suggests that six-month CPI momentum will be back at about 2% in spring 2024, with the annual rate following during H2. 

Chart 1

Chart 1 showing Eurozone Consumer Prices & Broad Money (% 6m annualised)

The projected return to 2% next spring is a reflection of a fall in six-month broad money momentum below 5% annualised in spring 2022. A subsequent decline in money momentum to zero suggests an inflation undershoot or even falling prices in 2025. 

The shocking implication is that monetary trends were already consistent with a return of inflation to target before the ECB started hiking rates in July 2022. The 425 bp rise since then represents grotesque overkill, confirmed by recent monetary stagnation / contraction. 

The corollary is that a huge and embarrassing policy reversal is likely to be necessary over the next 12-24 months, unless some other factor causes broad money momentum to recover to a target-consistent pace. 

That seems a remote possibility, based on consideration of the “credit counterparts”. Loan demand balances in the latest ECB bank lending survey were less negative but still suggestive of negligible private credit expansion – chart 2. 

Chart 2

Chart 2 showing Eurozone Bank Loans to Private Sector (% 6m) & ECB Bank Lending Survey Credit Demand Indicator* *Average of Demand Balances across Loan Categories

Credit to government may contract given QT, withdrawal of TLTRO funding and inverted yield curves. (Banks previously used cheap TLTRO finance to buy higher-yielding government securities.) Redemptions of public sector debt held under the ECB’s Asset Purchase Programme amount to €262 billion over the next 12 months, equivalent to 1.6% of M3. 

Broad money momentum has been supported recently by an increase in banks’ net external assets, reflecting a strengthening basic balance of payments (current account plus non-bank capital flows) – chart 3. This could accelerate as a Eurozone recession swells the current account surplus but is unlikely to outweigh domestic credit weakness. 

Chart 3

Chart 3 showing Eurozone M3 & Credit Counterparts Contributions to M3 % 6m
CC&L Financial Group Ltd.
août 4th, 2023