After inflation, focus on household morale in the United States

The main events of the week, namely the evolution of consumer and producer prices in July in the United States, are behind us but some statistics still deserve to be analysed.

Fall in gasoline and return of confidence?

The main one will undoubtedly be the University of Michigan’s preliminary index measuring US consumer confidence in August. In recent months, the University of Michigan index has been strongly correlated to the evolution of prices and more particularly those of energy, which had deteriorated the outlook for households. The slowdown in inflation in July, particularly in gasoline prices which had peaked in mid-June (a gallon rose to 5.19 dollars but has since fallen back to 4.31 dollars), could confidence to recover in August. This is in any case the perception of economists forming the Bloomberg consensus, who are counting on an increase in the index to 52.5 points, against 51.5 in July.

In France, operators have taken note of the unemployment rate for the second quarter, a slight increase of 0.1 point, to 7.4%. The market will also follow the final inflation estimate of July, expected at 6.8% over one year.

Industrial production in June is expected to grow by 0.2% over one month, in eurozonewhile it fell by 0.9% in UK. Across the Channel, from one quarter to another, the gross domestic product (GDP) Britain fell by 0.1% over the period from April to June, whereas it had increased by 0.8% over the first three months of the year.