Canada's Prior Is Minus 0.1 and Plus 0.2. The Consensus Only Fits One of Them.
Statistics Canada publishes September CPI at 12:30 UTC and the prior you are trading against exists in two versions.
The agency's own August release says the CPI fell 0.1 per cent month over month and, seasonally adjusted, rose 0.2 per cent - both sentences in the same document. Every preview in this morning's sweep prints minus 0.1 as the prior and plus 0.2 as the consensus, which reads as a 30 basis point acceleration. If the forecasters mean the adjusted series, plus 0.2 against plus 0.2 is no acceleration at all, and nobody publishing the consensus says which series it is for. Headline consensus is 3.2 per cent year on year against 3.0. Four numbers are called core for August and they span 70 basis points - CPI-common 2.6, CPI-trim 1.9, CPI-median 2.0, ex food and energy 2.4 - and the only one with a September consensus is the one the Bank of Canada does not target, while the three it watches have no number to beat before the October 28 decision. Also: the two figures this desk fought over five weeks ago, 3.0 and minus 0.1, are now the uncontested prior at four houses, which is how a vendor dispute actually ends. And one publisher priced the Bank of Canada's year end twice in three hours, at nearly 23 basis points and at 34, eleven basis points apart.