Market Update – 15th September 2021.

15th September 2021

Focus so far this week has been on inflation data, given we had the US reading yesterday (Tuesday 14 September 2021) and the UK’s earlier this morning.

Thankfully, yesterday’s US CPI inflation reading confirmed our view that inflation is not about to run away, as the headline CPI reading slowed from 5.4% in July to 5.3% in August, while the core reading (which excludes volatile items such as food and energy) declined to 4.0% from 4.3% in July (and from 4.5% in June).

Although the UK’s inflation went the other way with the headline reading jumping to 3.2% in August from 2.0% in July, it is important not to overreact and ignore the likely negative news headlines.

We have long been highlighting that UK inflation would increase sharply this year due to what is known as ‘base effects’ as the price declines we experienced 12 months ago (due to the government’s ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme and temporary VAT cut for the hospitality sector) start to drop out of the reading’s calculations.

Consequently, the future rate of inflation is more important and we believe the current elevated inflation is transitory and will fall back in 2022 – although given all the supply-chain disruptions (thanks to the strict lockdown measures across Asia which has closed factories), prices may remain elevated for a little longer than we previously forecast.

Investment Management Team