Six Priors Moved in Six and a Half Hours. Japan's Acceleration Is a Third Smaller Than It Reads.
Japan's September CPI landed at 23:30 UTC on 22 October and Britain's September retail sales at 06:00 UTC today - six and a half hours apart - and between them they revised six of the seven prior figures they carried, every one upward. In Japan that shrinks the story: core printed 2.1 per cent, in line, against a prior three of four readers publish as 1.7 and one revises to 1.8, so the monthly acceleration is 0.3 points rather than 0.4 and the published-prior version overstates it by 33.3 per cent. Core-core printed 2.4 against 2.3 expected, and it is the only field in the release that surprised - the one no headline carries, while the two a single-value news filter is likeliest to read both came in exactly on consensus. In Britain the revisions enlarge the story: all four fields missed, mean absolute miss 0.45 points and the largest 0.7 in the ex-fuel year-on-year field no headline leads with, while all four August bases were marked up by a total of 1.0 point, making the headline monthly swing 1.1 points against the 0.9 the unrevised base gives. A revision has no sign preference. We also close our own seven-slot open item: the figure pair we carried as plus 2.1 against plus 1.7 was a consensus and a prior, never two forecasts, and the basket is all items less fresh food - fresh food only, not energy. Every figure we carry needs its field, basket and vintage attached when it is written down.