This week was strongly in favor of the European stock markets. The US indices moved little and mostly to the downside – with S&P, Nasdaq100 and DJIA closing the weekly candle at -0.43%, 0.01% and -0.18% respectively. AEX and Stoxx600 outshined their overseas counterparts, closing the Friday session respectively 1.57% and 1.32% higher than a week before. However, the biggest winner of the week is the British index FTSE 100, which after reaching its ATH during the Thursday session closed the week above 8000 points and gained 1.55% on a weekly basis.

Such small moves in the U.S. indices are surprising, given that on Tuesday, the CPIs were published – which over the last year has climbed up the pedestal of economic data watched most carefully by the investors. Last year’s CPI days were among the most volatile ones, thus this sudden change of heart might have been quite a surprise. 

Speaking of change of heart, the U.S. CPI number has raised some voices that the disinflationary trends acknowledged last week by J. Powell might have come to an end – both headline and core inflation have missed the expectations to the upside, printing at 6.4% and 5.6% respectively. Yet, such a strong position on the higher-than-expected CPIs is rather uncommon, most viewing it as an outcome of fluctuations in the oil price.

Another surprise, which almost certainly had some contribution to FTSE’s ATH, was UK inflation, which on the other hand has beaten the expectations by printing significantly lower than the consensus expectation. British core prices declined by 0.9% on a monthly basis, vs 

-0.5% expectations. Regardless of the market's positive reaction to that news, it is important to keep in mind that the headline number for the UK still stays above 10% on a YoY basis – the way back to normal still seems like a pretty long one.

 Flow Traders Investment Competition Update 

The competition has a new leader again! This week it is B.R.O.O.D. Beleggers, rising 5 places. As they would say ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’. So who will we see in the red sweaters at the next social drink? The biggest rise of the week is for Floryn Traders, catching up with their sisters Floryn Vrouwen. At the bottom of the competition we can still find Plutus Investments,  Vae Victis and INVICTI, who have been trading the last three places in the competition with each other. Hopefully for them this can change in the upcoming weeks.