Investors Wait Uneasily for U.S. February CPI on Otherwise Light Day for Data Releases
March 11, 2026
Despite Trump’s prediction that the war in Iran is nearly done, Iran still shows no inclination to negotiate. Ships aren’t going through the Strait of Hormuz, and the price of oil has rebounded over 3% to remain well over pre-war levels at more than $86.0 per barrel. The Paris-based International Energy Agency is recommending a record release of strategic oil reserves to soften the inflationary fallout.
Safe-haven demand has lifted the weighted DXY dollar index another 0.2%.
Ten-year sovereign debt yields in Europe have jumped ten basis points in the U.K. and Italy, nine bps in France, 8 bps in Spain, six bps in Germany but just 3 basis points in Switzerland, whose franc has moved in lockstep with the dollar. After hawkish remarks from European Central Bank President Lagarde yesterday, the possibility of an interest rate hike by that central bank this year is looking more plausible.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield edged a basis point higher, and the 10-year Japanese Government Bond yield has dipped a basis point on concern that the BOJ might throttle back the pace of interest rate normalization.
European stock markets are having a tough session, led by a 1.3% drop in the German DAX so far. Pacific Rim share prices were widely mixed with gains of 4.1% in Taiwan, 1.4% in Japan and 0.5-0.6% in New Zealand and Australia. U.S. stock futures are marking time ahead of the all-important release of U.S. consumer price figures an hour and a half from now.
Prices for silver (-2.2%), gold (-0.8%) and Bitcoin (-0.7%) have each fallen so far this Wednesday.
Meanwhile, German consumer prices in February were left unrevised from their preliminary estimated 0.2% monthly increase that was associated with a 2-month low year-on-year rise of 1.9%. Energy and food components accounted for all of the drop from January’s 2.1% inflation rate. Core CPI held steady at 2.5%, including an unchanged 3.2% increase in the services component.
The 12-month increase in Japanese domestic producer goods prices eased to a 22-month low of 2.0% in February, less than half its 4.3% reading in the prior year ending February 2025. Import prices, which has posted a 5.7% year-on-year drop in July 2024, moved into positive territory last month at +0.6%.
Croatian producer price inflation of 0.9% this month represents a 3-month high.
Year-on-year growth of Turkish retail sales in January picked up to a 22-month high of 8.8%, while Spanish retail sales that month showed a 4.0% 12-month increase after a 2.8% reading in December.
U.S. consumer price data in February aligned with consensus expectations in the market, holding steady at 2.4% overall and 2.5% excluding food and energy. Energy price inflation swung above zero to 0.5%, while the food component stayed at 3.1%. The back-to-back overall 2.4% readings followed ones of 2.7% in the final two months of 2025 and were just 0.1 percentage point above the 2.3% low in April 2025. On the other hand, CPI inflation, which peaked in mid-2022 at 9.1%, has not been as low as the 2.0% Fed target since February 2021, exactly five full years.
Copyright 2026, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved.
Tags: ECB President Lagarde, German CPI, U.S. CPI
ShareThis
