Brief update today... Analysts will be taking account of Q1 updates from some of America’s largest financial institutions in the coming days. The commentary will probably settle on the trajectory of interest rates, as the inflation rate in the US is fast approaching “runaway” status.
Prices in the US climbed at their highest rates since 1981, rising 8.5 per cent over the year to the end of March as the war in Ukraine drove up energy costs – that’s the White House line, at any rate. Hopefully, the US banks will have rather more to say on the burgeoning money supply in the US economy.
The impact of the cost-of-living crisis is already shrinking discretionary income in the US and elsewhere, but the overall impact on aggregate demand is unclear at this stage, though largely predictable.
Oil prices are trending downwards at the moment, a possible reaction to the prospect of new/old barrels being released from strategic reserves, or it could simply reflect the early stages of a general slowdown in economy activity.
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