Published: 2024-05-10T14:44:28.000Z
Preview: Due May 21 - Canada April CPI - Headline stable but BoC core rates falling
Senior Economist , North America
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April CPI will be closely watched as the last CPI release before the June 5 Bank of Canada meeting. We expect the yr/yr pace to be unchanged from January at 2.9% which was also the pace in January before February saw a brief dip to 2.8%. However we expect continued steady downward progress in the BoC’s core rates.
On the month we expect gains of 0.7% overall and 0.5% ex food and energy. Some of these gains will be seasonal but seasonally adjusted we expect gains of 0.4% overall and 0.3% ex food and energy.
The latter would be a second straight 0.3% increase to follow gains of 0.1% in January and February. January and February saw sharp declines in clothing which took at least 0.1% off the change. March saw a partial correction higher in clothing which could extend further in April.
While we expect the yr/yr ex food and energy rate, like the headline, to remain at 2.9% yr/yr this is not one of the BoC’s three core rates, which continued their steady trend lower in March despite the slightly firmer data on the month. We expect this to persist in April, with CPI-common falling to 2.7% from 2.9%, CPI-median falling to 2.6% from 2.8%, and CPI-trim falling to 2.9% from 3.1%.