After all the Japanese shenanigans I’ve finally managed to look back over the inflation numbers. It seems that video games were a big contributor to inflation this month along side smaller falls in transport costs, particularly motor fuels and air fares.
Unfortunately the petrol companies are not as quick to reduce pump prices as fast as they raise them. They hide behind productions costs blah blah blah, but they blame oil when putting them up yet they keep quiet when oil comes down. However, there are signs that a price war is looming among supermarket fuel sellers that could see pump prices fall fast and far enough to see it play out in the data over the next couple of months.
Another point underpinning the data today was the higher prices and bigger sales of video games said the ONS.
By far the largest upward contribution came from price movements for games, toys and hobbies – notably computer games where a number of new titles have been released in the run up to Christmas replacing cheaper titles in the computer games charts.
The details fall under the recreation sub category. Ok, so it’s not a component that the BOE is going to raise rates on, and only a slither of what makes up the broader inflation picture but it might give us a little look into the retail sales data which is due on Thursday.
People in England just wanted to see what a World Cup win would look like
According to the data prices in games and toys were up 2.1% vs -2.3% seen a year earlier, and that suggests that stores are confident enough to keep prices higher into the Christmas period. If so, then we could see some strong numbers coming out if there has been an early bout of pre-Christmas buying.
Horace boosts inflation
