Italian flash headline inflation decelerates in December on energy prices

The preliminary estimates showed that Italian headline inflation dropped sequentially in December. According to Istat, the consumer price index fell 0.1 percent month-on-month and rose 1.1 percent year-on-year. The year-on-year rate slowed from 1.6 percent recorded in the prior month.

The average annual rate of change of consumer prices in 2018, measure by NIC, came in at 1.2 percent and excluding energy and unprocessed food, core rate came in at 0.7 percent.

The deceleration of the year-on-year rate in December was mainly driven by prices of non-regulated energy products and to a lesser degree, to prices of processed and of services related to transport.

Both core rate excluding energy and unprocessed food and inflation excluding energy dropped from the previous month, coming in at 0.6 percent.

The fall on monthly basis of All items index was mainly because of prices of non-regulated energy products and of processed food, only partly countered by the rise of prices of services related to transport.

Prices of grocery and unprocessed food were the zero variation sequentially and rose 0.8 percent year-on-year.

The preliminary estimates showed that the harmonized index of consumer prices dropped 0.1 percent sequentially in December and rose 1.2 percent year-on-year. The average annual rate of change of HICP was 1.2 percent.

At 12:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Euro was neutral at -31.2884, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at 37.6591. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex