Investing.com – Consumer price inflation (CPI) in the euro zone ticked up to more than a two-year high in October, but concerns remained over weak price increases in the region placing additional pressure on the European Central Bank (ECB) to take further action, official preliminary data showed on Monday.
In a report, Eurostat said consumer price inflation rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.5% this month, in line with forecasts and following a final reading of a 0.4% advance in September. That was the biggest increase since June 2014.
Core CPI, which excludes food, energy, alcohol, and tobacco costs, increased by a seasonally adjusted 0.8% in October, matching expectations and the previous month’s increase.
Despite the uptick in the core number, the low levels of headline inflation continues to be negative news for the euro zone’s monetary authority as inflation remains far below its 2% target.
The ECB will hold its next monetary policy meeting on December 8 and may announce the extension of its asset purchase program which is currently scheduled to end in March 2017.
After the report, which was released simultaneously with the region’s GDP data, EUR/USD was unchanged at 1.0953, while EUR/GBP was at 0.8997 from 0.9002 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were trading lower. The Euro Stoxx 50 dropped 0.43%, Germany's DAX fell 0.25%, France’s CAC 40 lost 0.63%, while London’s FTSE 100 traded down 0.30%.