euro zone inflation data, stocks, news

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz discussed the latest political, military and humanitarian situation in Ukraine in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday, the German government said in a statement.

Scholz told the Ukrainian president that Germany would continue to support Ukraine along with European and international partners.

Scholz also reiterated Germany’s “ongoing and unwavering solidarity” with Ukraine and said that its “future lies in the European Union,” according to the statement.

Zelenskyy discussed recent Russian attacks on Ukrainian civil energy infrastructure and thanked Germany for its military support.

— Jenni Reid

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said Thursday he expects the central bank will have to hold interest rates at a “restrictive” level to get inflation back to target.

“I expect it will be appropriate to maintain a restrictive stance for quite some time to fully restore balance and to bring inflation back to our 2 percent longer-run goal on a sustained basis,” Williams said in prepared remarks.

However, he also said he thinks the Fed is “at, or near, the peak level” of where it needs to set the fed funds rate, the central bank’s benchmark for short-term lending. Williams added that he expects inflation to recede to about 2.25% in 2024 before it gets back to target the following year.

—Jeff Cox

The euro traded lower against the British pound and the U.S. dollar after euro zone inflation came in at 2.4%, below the 2.7% level predicted by economists polled by Reuters.

The euro was 0.55% down against the greenback at $1.091 at 11:35 a.m. London time, and it stood 0.06% below sterling at 0.863, as investors assessed what the figures mean for potential interest rate cuts from the European Central Bank next year.

Joe Tuckey, head of FX analysis at Argentex Group, said that the most recent central bank forecasts for average inflation of 3.2% in 2024 and 2.1% in 2025 may not be too high, and that the latest reading provides a “challenging landscape for any remaining ECB hawks.”

Fresh outlook are due at the ECB meeting in mid-December.

“Markets are now beginning to price for an April cut, and the price action for EURUSD in the coming weeks will be partially driven by the rate cut timing from the ECB vis-a-vis that of the Federal Reserve,” Tuckey said in emailed comments.

The number of people out of work in Germany increased by a seasonally adjusted 22,000 in November, the Labour Office said Thursday, bringing the total to around 2.702 million.

That was in line with expectations from analysts previously surveyed by Reuters.

The jobless rate, also on a seasonally adjusted basis, was at 5.9% in November, up from October’s 5.8%.

— Sophie Kiderlin

European markets opened higher on the last day of the month, but sectors were mixed.

Oil and Gas stocks were last up by close to 1%, while chemicals dipped by around 0.4%.

The Stoxx 600 index was up by around 0.14% at 8:15 a.m. London time and hovered just below a 6% increase for the month of November.

— Sophie Kiderlin

French inflation rose by 3.4% on an annual basis in November, the The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies said Thursday.

That marked a slowdown from the previous month’s reading of 4%.

Compared with the previous month, inflation declined slightly by 0.2% in November.

Data also showed that the French economy contracted slightly in the third quarter, with the gross domestic product declining by 0.1%.

— Sophie Kiderlin

German retail sales rose by 1.1% in October from the previous month, the federal statistics office said Thursday.

That’s far higher than the 0.4% increase previously expected by analysts polled by Reuters.

Non-food items were the key driver behind the elevated sales, while food retail sales weakened.

On an annual basis, retail sales declined slightly by 0.1%.

— Sophie Kiderlin

Three stocks are on the verge of taking off, according to a chart pattern closely watched by technical analysts.

The phenomenon, known as a “golden cross”, occurs when a stock’s 50-day moving average share…