ECB Says Consumers' Inflation Expectations Eased in June
Prices were seen rising 2.6% over the next 12 months, down from 2.8% in May, according to a monthly survey released Tuesday. That's the level recorded at the start of the year — before threats of a full-blown trade war fueled concerns that inflation would rebound. Gauges for three years and five years ahead remained unchanged at 2.4% and 2.1%.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Wary of sticker shock, retailers clash with brands on price hikes
By Helen Reid LONDON (Reuters) -Caught between rising costs from tariffs and belt-tightening consumers, big retailers are clashing with the producers of consumer brands such as Nivea-maker Beiersdorf and brewer Heineken, as they look to avoid sticker shock that could hurt sales. The disputes - which have dented some brands' sales - underscore the challenge for consumer goods makers and sellers, with inflation and tariffs pushing up input costs and price spikes in commodities such as coffee. While pricing talks have never been easy, tariffs are escalating already high food inflation since the pandemic, making grocery bills more contentious and political as consumers grapple with a cost-of-living crisis. "We all should be very well aware of consumer budgets," Frans Muller, CEO of supermarket company Ahold Delhaize, which owns U.S. chains Food Lion, Hannaford, and Stop & Shop, told Reuters on Wednesday. He said conversations with consumer goods companies over pricing were "tight," adding that the industry's focus was on increasing sales volumes rather than increasing revenue by hiking prices. "That is the wrong way of supporting customers and the wrong way of growing the business itself." Ahold has in-house teams that track commodity, energy, and labour costs, and own-brand products it can compare with to establish whether price increases demanded by consumer brands are justified or not, Muller said. On the other side of the equation are the brands, facing higher costs that are squeezing margins. Beiersdorf CEO Vincent Warnery said on Wednesday that retailers in key markets, including Germany and France, had pushed back strongly in price talks last quarter, not only refusing price increases but asking for price reductions, and pulling products from shelves. Beiersdorf eventually agreed to a 2.6% rise, Warnery said, but delistings of some products by retailers knocked two percentage points off its sales growth in Europe in the second quarter. "There will be a lot of price changes pushed forward by consumer brands, some will be accepted by retailers and some will not," said Bobby Gibbs, a Dallas-based partner at Oliver Wyman who advises retailers and consumer goods firms. Manufacturers will find it easier to push higher prices through on products where there is brand loyalty and fewer strong private label alternatives, Gibbs said. Reuters' global tariff tracker shows at least 102 out of nearly 300 companies monitored by the tracker have announced price hikes in response to the trade war, with about 41 of them in the consumer sector. As well as tariffs, other factors like the cost of capital and labour, and commodity prices in the case of coffee and chocolate, are pushing prices up on certain products, Gibbs said. Trump has said the tariffs counter persistent U.S. trade imbalances and declining U.S. manufacturing power, and that the moves will bring jobs and investment to the nation. MORE PRICE HIKES AHEAD More price hikes are planned, particularly in the U.S. Tide detergent maker Procter & Gamble last week said it was raising prices on about a quarter of its products in the U.S. by a mid-single-digit percentage as part of efforts to mitigate the cost of higher tariffs on imported goods. That will affect pricing at Walmart, Target, and other stores. As talks heat up, more retailers could pull branded products temporarily as a negotiating tactic, as Ahold's Albert Heijn chain did this year in a dispute over price hikes by coffee roaster JDE Peet's. Dutch brewer Heineken last week said its beer sales were dented by a price dispute with European retailers. "Many retailers are getting more sophisticated in how they can measure product switching ... so they're willing to be bolder on delistings because they're able to protect sales and margin more than they would have in the past," said Gibbs. In Europe, retailers are joining forces to increase their clout in pricing talks. Carrefour said last month it had created a new European buying alliance called Concordis, along with rival group Coopérative U, and is in advanced discussions with other European retailers to expand the alliance. Supermarkets are developing more own-brand alternatives to big-name brands. Ahold has introduced 300 new own-brand products this year in its U.S. chains, and sales growth in those has outpaced the rest of the store, it said. Big brands have taken note, with P&G's Chief Financial Officer Andre Schulten saying last week that retailers have been implementing "more aggressive pricing" on own-brand products. "We see some level of pressure to drive trade down because of price promotional behaviour," he said, referring to consumers swapping to lower-priced products, adding the market would remain "volatile and challenging". Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
China's July exports top forecasts amid rush to meet Trump tariff deadline
(Corrects June export growth in paragraph 2 to 5.8% from 4.8%) BEIJING (Reuters) -China's exports beat forecasts in July, as manufacturers made the most of a fragile tariff truce between Beijing and Washington to ship goods ahead of a looming deadline later this month. Outbound shipments from the world's second-largest economy rose 7.2% year-on-year in July, customs data showed on Thursday, beating a forecast 5.4% increase in a Reuters poll and June's 5.8% growth. Imports grew 4.1%, following a 1.1% rise in June. Economists had predicted a 1.0% fall. China is facing an August 12 deadline to reach a durable tariff agreement with the U.S. administration, after Beijing and Washington reached framework agreements in May and June to reduce non-tariff barriers such as rare earth minerals and technology to avoid further escalating their trade war. Without a deal, global supply chains could face renewed turmoil from U.S. duties snapping back to triple-digit levels that would amount to a bilateral trade embargo. Trump said on Tuesday the U.S. was close to a trade deal with China and that he would meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping before the end of the year if the world's two largest economies could come to an agreement. China's July trade surplus narrowed to $98.24 billion from $114.77 billion in June. Separate data from the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis on Tuesday showed the U.S. trade gap with China shrank to its lowest in more than 21 years in June. Chinese government advisers are stepping up calls to make the household sector's contribution to broader economic growth a top priority at Beijing's upcoming five-year policy plan, as trade tensions and deflation threaten the outlook. And top leaders have vowed to step up regulation of aggressive price-cutting by Chinese companies that is pushing prices ever lower. But economists warn that reversing the current deflationary slump will be far more difficult than during the last round of supply-side reforms a decade ago, as the downturn now poses a broader threat to employment, which Chinese leaders have emphasised is a core component of social stability. Reaching an agreement with the United States — and with the European Union, which has accused China of producing and selling goods too cheaply — would give Chinese officials more room to advance their reform agenda. However, analysts expect little relief from Western trade pressures. Export growth is projected to slow sharply in the second half of the year, hurt by persistently high tariffs, President Trump's renewed crackdown on the rerouting of Chinese shipments and deteriorating relations with the EU.
Bloomberg
24 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
JP Morgan, Commerzbank and ING to Support European Defense Bank
JP Morgan Chase & Co, Commerzbank AG and ING Group NV have given their backing to a new Europe-wide bank designed to boost security spending across the region, according to the development group guiding its creation. The banking heavyweights are among the largest finance firms to endorse the Defense, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB), which is hoping to raise £100 billion ($132.9 billion) to turbocharge rearmament and counter threats, development group chief executive Rob Murray said Thursday.
