Several Countries Release Price Data and Industrial Production – Currency Thoughts
Several Countries Release Price Data and Industrial Production
October 10, 2025
The dollar slipped overnight by 0.3% against the yen, 0.2% versus the Korean won and New Zealand dollar, and 0.15 relative to the euro, Swiss franc and Mexican peso. Notable stock market movements in Asia this Friday ranged from gains of 1.7% in South Korea and 0.9% in Taiwan to losses of 1.0% in Japan and 0.9% in China. Changes in European stock exchanges and U.S. equity futures have been inconsequential, by contrast. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield fell four basis points, and comparable sovereign debt yields moved in lockstep in Great Britain, France, Italy and Spain. The 10-year German bund and Japanese JGB yields are three and one basis points lower, respectively. The prices of WTI oil and Bitcoin are down 1.5% and 0.2%, while gold has strengthened 0.8% and is close to Wednesday’s record high of $4006/oz.
In central banking news, market participants attach very high odds to the likelihood of a 25-basis point interest rate cut at the next FOMC meeting. The president of the New York Federal Reserve District, which unlikely other district presidents has a vote in interest rate decisions every year, made remarks implying that the market’s assessment at the end-October meeting is an appropriate one. The Central Reserve Bank of Peru left it policy interest rate unchanged at 4.25%. The rate previously had been progressively lowered by 150 basis points during the final third of 2023, by 125 bps during 2024, and a further 25 bps three times earlier this year, most recently last month. A peak of 7.75% had been maintained from January 2023 until an initial cut in September of that year. From a peak of 8.8% in mid-2022, Peruvian CPI inflation had dropped to a 7-year low of 1.1% in August and printed at a benign and in-target 1.36% last month. According to a released statement, “One-year-ahead inflation expectations remained at 2.2 percent in September, within the inflation target range… Almost all the current situation indicators and those related to economic activity expectations remained in the optimistic territory, in a context where economic activity is around its potential level.”
Kazakhistan faces a far different inflationary situation than Peru, and officials at the National Bank of Kazakhstan today made a statement of serious intention to counter price pressures by hiking their reference interest rate to 18.0%, higher than such has been in over a decade, from 16.5%. This latest increase followed ones of 100 basis points last November and 125 bps in March. Consumer price inflation in their economy had dropped from 21.3% in 2023 to a 27-month low of 8.3% in September 2023 but had risen back to 12.9% by last month, which is more than double the target of 5%. Real GDP growth in Kazakhstan this year has exceeded 6.0%.
Consumer price inflation data released yesterday by Mexico and Brazil were at a 3-month high of 3.7% and a 2-month high of 5.2%, respectively. CPI releases today include a 5-month low in the Czech Republic of 2.3%, a 7-month high in Norway of 3.6%, a 2-month high in Denmark of 2.3%, a 3-month low in Portugal of 2.4%, Mongolia‘s 6-month high of 9.0%, and Moldova‘s 10-month low of 6.9%.
Japanese domestic producer price inflation among goods during September matched August’s 2-month high of 2.7%, while import prices recorded a diminished on-year slide of just 0.8%. Croatian producer price inflation of 1.7% in September was at a 25-month high but well down from 24.0% in mid-2022.
Industrial production figures were also reported today in several economies. Italian IP dropped 2.4% on month and 2.7% on year in August; each change constituted the weakest result in eight months. Slovakian production was 6.3% below its August 2024 level, marking the biggest 12-month drop in 32 month. Slovenian production fell 0.6% from July to August, the biggest decline in 4 months and resulting in zero percent growth compared to August 2024. Austrian industrial production sank 2.3% on month and recorded a greatly shrunken 0.8% year-on-year rise. Latvian IP fell 2.4% on month that slashed the 12-month increase to 2.4% from 9.8% posted in July. Despite a 2.6% monthly advance, IP in Finland was 0.2% lower than a year earlier. Malaysian industrial production fell 0.3% in August but still posted its largest on-year rise (4.9%) in 11 months. Swedish IP jumped 5.1% and by 10.6% from a year earlier.
Other data of interest reported today include
- An unchanged New Zealand manufacturing purchasing managers index score of 49.9, implying stagnation.
- A 12.2% on-year rise in Turkish retail sales was the smallest increase in four months.
- The Dutch trade surplus in January-August of EUR 80 billion was 12% narrower than a year earlier.
The U.S. data release machine remains mostly jammed due to the federal government shutdown, but an exception will be the consumer sentiment estimate compiled jointly by Reuters and the University of Michigan, which is due shortly.
President Trump had campaigned hard for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which carries a $1.1 million value, but it was instead awarded Maria Corina Machado. She was singled out in particular for two characteristics rarely associated with the U.S. president — promoting democracy in authoritarian Venezuela and as a unifying figure in her country.
Copyright 2025, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: Central Reserve Bank of Peru, Maria Corina Machado, National Bank of Kazakhstan
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