US inflation decelerated in July by more than expected, reflecting lower energy prices, which may take some pressure off the Federal Reserve to continue aggressively hiking interest rates.

The consumer price index increased 8.5% from a year earlier, cooling from the 9.1% June advance that was the largest in four decades, Labor Department data showed Wednesday. Prices were unchanged from the prior month. A decline in gasoline offset increases in food and shelter costs. 

Africa’s most-populous nation showed more interest in cryptocurrencies than any other country since the digital assets began to decline in April, according to a study by price tracker CoinGecko.

Nigeria scored 371 in the study that looked at Google Trends data for six searches such as “buy crypto” or “invest in crypto” that were then combined to give each English-speaking nation a total search ranking. The West African country was followed by the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. 

The People’s Bank of China said it will safeguard the economy against inflation threats, pledging to avoid massive stimulus and excessive money printing to spur growth.  

The central bank will both support economic growth and ensure stable prices, the PBOC said in its quarterly monetary policy report released Wednesday. At the same time, it will provide stronger and higher-quality support to the real economy, it said.

Europe’s natural gas stockbuild is running about nine weeks ahead of last year, reducing the leverage available to Russian President Vladimir Putin through his country’s exports to the region.

“EU gas inventories are still building relatively strongly, despite Russia cutting flows through the Nord Stream pipeline to just 20% of capacity,” Standard Chartered analysts including Emily Ashford and Paul Horsnell said in a note dated Aug. 9.

Russia is getting ready to resume oil flows through a pipeline to central Europe after Hungary’s sole refiner stepped in to resolve a problem over the payment of a transit fee to Ukraine.

Crude flows via the southern leg of the Druzhba link may reach Slovakia by the

The Rhine River is set to become virtually impassable at a key waypoint in Germany, as shallow water chokes off shipments of energy products and other industrial commodities along one of Europe’s most important waterways.

The marker at Kaub, west of Frankfurt, is

Inflation, Musk sells Tesla and a European river is drying up.

The big US CPI numbers finally arrive today. Economists expect inflation in the US to have cooled in July, though by how much seems to be the big question for traders. The median forecast of economists in a Bloomberg survey is for an annual reading of 8.7% and an increase of 0.2% from June. Meanwhile, Bank of America reckons that the US yield curve could invert more deeply than at any time since the 1980s because of the Federal Reserve's efforts to cool inflation.

Around 7,000 of Aviva’s lowest-paid employees were told last week they will get a payout of as much as £1,000 ($1,208), Aviva’s chief executive Amanda Blanc said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

Hungary’s biggest refiner said it has paid Russia’s transit fee to Ukraine to resolve a dispute that has led to a halt in oil flows to central Europe.

Mol Nyrt., the oil company that sought to unblock supplies, said Ukraine and Russia have both accepted its decision to step in to settle the transfer fees.

Coal’s remarkable rise from a fuel left for dead to one of the world’s hottest commodities is likely to last for years.

Europe’s plans to wean itself off Russian fuels will support the coal market in two distinct ways, both of which should keep prices of seaborne cargoes inflated for the near future, according to Fitch Solutions analysts. 

Hungary’s biggest refiner said it has paid Russia’s transit fee to Ukraine to resolve a dispute that has led to a halt in oil flows to central Europe.

Mol Nyrt., the oil company that sought to unblock supplies, said Ukraine and Russia have both accepted its decision to step in to settle the transfer fees.

China’s economy will face increasing risks if interbank borrowing rates stay too low for too long, a former central-bank official says.

Excessively cheap funding costs may drive more financial institutions into leveraged bond trading, where they borrow more short-term cash to invest in longer-maturity debt, said Sheng Songcheng, previously head of the statistics and analysis department at the People’s Bank of China.

Benchmark German power prices rose to a record, with an ongoing heat wave and drought set to severely restrict one of Europe’s key waterways for shipping energy supplies. 

The blistering summer heat is adding stress to Europe’s energy system while Russia limits exports of gas to the continent. That’s set to hit the finances of households and businesses across Europe, a crisis that will only intensify as energy demand rises during winter.

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Inflation in urban parts of Egypt quickened after a month of cooling off, as rising food prices and a local hike in fuel costs added more pressure to consumers in the largest Arab nation.

Consumer prices rose 6.8% in July from a year earlier, the fastest pace since July 1988, according to data from Statistics Norway on Wednesday. Underlying inflation, the measure followed by the central bank, rose to an annual 4.5% -- the highest on record. The median estimate in the analyst poll for core price growth was 3.8%, while Norges Bank had projected a pace of 3.2%.

Belgium’s almost unique wage-hike system is being put to the test as spiraling inflation pushes the country’s salaries above its neighbors, threatening its competitiveness. 

The sixth-largest euro-area economy may see public and private wage costs jump as much as an unprecedented 12% over the next two years, as

A drop in Swedish apartment prices picked up speed last month, adding to evidence that the property market in the largest Nordic nation is floundering.

The average cost was 4% lower in July than the previous month, marking the fastest decline since before the pandemic, according to data published on Wednesday by Svensk Maklarstatistik. House prices fell 1% from June.  

European natural gas prices rose on Wednesday after three sessions of declines as countries in the region warned of a possibly difficult winter ahead.

The potential for Russian supply disruptions over the peak demand season remains in focus, keeping prices elevated, even with gas storage levels currently normal for the time of year and pipeline flows steady.  

Thailand’s central bank raised the benchmark policy rate for the first time in more than three years, and signaled sticking with measured moves going forward to fight inflation without derailing the economy’s recovery.

The bank’s monetary policy committee on Wednesday decided to increase the one-day repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 0.75% as forecast by 24 of 27 economists in a Bloomberg survey. The remaining three had predicted a 50-basis-point hike. The rate was

Investors are scouring the wreckage of the UK bond market for bargains, wagering the worst selloff since the global financial crisis has run too far.

By June 21, with surging inflation raising the likelihood the country would pitch into a prolonged recession, yields on sterling-denominated investment-grade corporate bonds had risen almost 250 basis point for the year to 4.5%, their highest level for a decade, according to Bloomberg indexes.