This afternoon, the Eurozone announced a new inflation figure, with the Producer Price Index (PPI) for October reaching 30.8%.
In contrast, China's PPI was at its highest last October, only slightly exceeding 13%, from which we can see how outrageously high the Eurozone's figure is.
Previously, the Eurozone had already released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, which increased by 10.6% year-on-year in October, still setting a new 40-year high.
However, compared to the previous month, this time the PPI data has slightly retreated, as September's PPI was as high as 41.9%, and the final announced value of 30.8% is also slightly lower than expected.
Compared to the data from the United States in the past few months, it seems that inflation in Europe is also beginning to peak and retreat.
Looking at some specific countries in the Eurozone, they are also showing a retreat, such as Italy, where the PPI for October, although as high as 33.7%, has already dropped significantly compared to the terrifying figure of 53% from the previous month.
Germany's PPI for October also showed a negative growth rate of 4.2%, which is a retreat from the previous month's 2.3%.
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The data is also reflected in the stock market.
At 4:00 PM Beijing time this afternoon, when stock markets across Europe opened, the UK experienced a sharp decline immediately after opening, with the lowest drop reaching 0.6%, but it has since slowly risen, and now the decline has narrowed to only 0.2%.
France is similar, with a sharp decline a few minutes after the opening, and the current decline has narrowed to less than 0.2%.Germany's performance is better, except for a gap down at the opening, it has now turned to rise, although the increase is only 0.25%.
Moreover, looking at the previous period, stock markets around the world have already achieved considerable gains.
Let's take Germany, the locomotive of Europe, as an example. At the end of September, the German DAX index was at its lowest at only 11,861 points, and now it has risen to 14,526 points. This rebound has reached 22.5%. In other words, Germany has already entered a technical bull market.
France's rebound has also approached 20%, but the rebound in the UK is relatively small, now only slightly exceeding 10%.
However, on the other hand, we must also see that not only has the UK stock market not fallen this year, but it has even achieved an annual increase of 2.15%, which is the best performing stock market among many Western countries.
Compared with the economies of the eurozone countries, the UK, which has already left the EU, seems to be in a relatively poor economic situation.
Recently, the UK has reversed its previous plans, not only canceling the tax cut plan in the mini-budget at the time, but also planning to raise taxes.
The UK is preparing to lower the threshold for personal income tax, especially for the wealthy. If this plan is implemented, people with an annual income of more than 125,000 pounds will be subject to a personal income tax rate of 45%.
At the same time, the UK's windfall tax on oil and gas companies has been significantly increased from 25% to 35%.
However, it is surprising that the UK is also imposing a high new tax of up to 45% on low-carbon new energy companies such as offshore wind power.Through these methods, the UK will raise an additional £15 billion to make up for fiscal shortfalls.
However, due to the high volatility of energy prices, these taxes are difficult to sustain in the long term, and the UK will also need to reduce costs through other means.