Dubai’s CPI (Consumer Price Index) accelerated to 4.3% y/y in October from 3.8% in September, the fastest rate of inflation since March, said Jeanne Walters, Senior Economist, Emirates NBD Research.

 

The move was expected and entirely due to higher transport costs as petrol prices rose in October. Housing was unchanged on an annual basis at 6.1% y/y. Inflation is likely to moderate again in November as petrol prices declined m/m, and we retain our forecast for average CPI at 3.5% this year, down from 4.7% in 2022.

 

Meanwhile, after having fallen marginally on Tuesday, US equity markets resumed their rally on Wednesday, with investors assessing the outlook for the December Fed meeting given mixed data releases. The Dow Jones rose 0.53%, the S&P 500 gained 0.41% and the NASDAQ increased 0.46%.

European equity markets generally also ended the day higher on Wednesday, fuelled by gains in tech stocks. The Eurostoxx 50 rose 0.46%, the CAC 40 gained 0.43%, and the DAX was up 0.36%. The FTSE 100 was the outlier, falling 0.17% on the back of declines in heavy-weight energy stocks.

Locally, the DFM rose 0.3% and the ADX closed 0.1% lower.

 

Commodities

Oil prices fell on Wednesday, with the Opec+ meeting originally scheduled to take place over the coming weekend now rescheduled to November 30. Reports suggest that the reason for the delay was ongoing discussions between Saudi Arabia and African member countries about production levels. Brent futures fell 0.6% to close at $81.96/b while WTI dropped 0.86% to $77.1/b.--TradeArabia News Service