Consumer price data for the December quarter was welcome news at a headline level with annual inflation now at 4.7%, its lowest rate since June 2021. Quarterly prices rose at the slowest pace since the inflation crisis kicked off and the number of items in the CPI basket that had falling prices was the highest in three years. But under the hood, some closely watched measures of underlying inflation pressure were stronger than the Reserve Bank of New Zealand had forecast. Non-tradable inflation was 5.9% rather than 5.7%, and Statistics NZ’s trimmed mean measure—which excludes largest increases and decreases—was around ... (full story)