There's a good reason for this: global inflationary pressures have diminished. Since mid-February commodity prices, as measured by the GSCI, have fallen by almost 10 per cent in US dollar terms. And the core rate of US inflation (which excludes food and energy) is actually lower now than it was a year ago, despite falling unemployment. Yes, core inflation in the eurozone rose last month, but this might be just a blip after many months of stability.
However, there will not be much relief in the UK figures. The ONS is likely to say next week that CPIH inflation has risen to around 2.5 per cent, its highest rate since 2013. Worse still, there are good reasons to suspect inflation will stay high.
Not least of these is that ordinary people expect it to. The Bank of England's latest survey of the public found that inflation expectations are at their highest level since 2013.
This matters, because it seems to be influencing wage- and price-setting. Having fallen surprisingly in December and January, annual wage growth jumped in February to its highest rate since August 2015: March's numbers are out next week. This growth is not being offset by productivity gains. Quite the opposite; strong rises in hours worked suggest productivity is falling. As a result, unit wage costs are rising significantly.
Because of this, companies expect to raise prices a lot. The recent CBI survey of manufacturers found that they intend to raise prices by more in the next three months than at any time in the last six years. As these rises gradually feed into consumer prices, CPIH inflation should continue to rise in the next few months. Most economists expect this to exceed 3 per cent later this year.
And it could be worse. Oliver Jones at Fathom Consulting warns that companies' pricing response to the sort of large, permanent drop in the exchange rate we saw last year might ultimately be stronger than the response to more normal small and temporary changes. If so, the impact upon domestic inflation will be greater than expected. And there remains the danger that higher actual inflation will lead to higher expected inflation - the two have traditionally been highly correlated - which will in turn keep actual inflation high.
With the economy likely to be weak, the Bank of England is unlikely to want to pre-empt these threats by raising rates. This means that real interest rates might well remain negative for a very long time.
This is not, however, a reason to shift into equities. Rising unit costs because of higher wages and weak productivity, when combined with weak domestic demand, would squeeze domestic profits.
In this sense, the effect of higher inflation would be to worsen our investment opportunities generally.
