- James Ashley, an economist at RBC Capital Markets
The inflation rate in the Eurozone's 17 countries that have the Euro in circulation rose to a six-month high in September, the EU's statistics office, Eurostat said on Friday. Consumer price inflation jumped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.7%, up from 2.6% in the prior month, while analysts had estimated the annual rate of inflation to fell to 2.4%.
"We continue to see the ECB leaving policy rates unchanged at next week's meeting — a view that is (at the margin) reinforced by this latest increase in inflation," said James Ashley, an economist at RBC Capital Markets.
"The ECB will obviously not be happy to see Eurozone inflation moving back up to 2.7 per cent, and it may well make them more wary about cutting interest rates further in the near term" said Howard Archer, economist at HIS Global Insight.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.25 per cent to 269.15. Germany's DAX Index advanced 0.41 per cent to 7,245.72 and France's CAC 40 Index gained 0.20 per cent to 3,361.64.
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