Japanese CPI: Rising 0.4 percent in line with estimates

Reuters reports that "Japan's core consumer prices rose 0.4 percent in March from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday. The core consumer price index, which includes oil products but excludes fresh food prices, compared with economists' median estimate for a 0.4 percent annual gain. Stripping away the effect of fresh food and energy, consumer prices rose 0.6 percent in March from a year ago."

A combination of demand disruptions pertain into COVID-19 and low oil prices will have put further downward pressure on sluggish underlying price growth

Key notes

• Japan march cpi excluding fresh food, energy prices +0.6 pct YoY - govt.
• Japan march nationwide overall CPI +0.4 pct YoY - govt.
• Japan march nationwide core CPI +0.4 pct YoY - govt (Reuters poll: +0.4 pct).

Description of Japnese CPI

The National Consumer Price Index released by the Statistics Bureau is a measure of price movements obtained by comparison of the retail prices of a representative shopping basket of goods and services. These volatile products such as food and energy are excluded in order to capture an accurate calculation. CPI is the most significant way to measure changes in purchasing trends. The purchase power of JPY is dragged down by inflation. Generally a high reading is seen as positive for the JPY.