November 1, 2019 (MLN): Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) is scheduled to announce the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of October very soon.
Anticipating these results, several brokerage houses have put forth their projections for the CPI figures, based on previous performance as well as current economic factors. The projections of these research houses are listed below;
CPI Forecast for the month of October
Research House
YoY
MoM
Al Habib Capital Markets
10.15%
0.97%
Shajar Capital
10.27%
1.09%
Foundation Securities
10.20%
1.10%
Spectrum Securities
10.10%
0.88%
Pearl Securities
10.30%
1.10%
BIPL Securities
10.50%
1.30%
Arif Habib
10.07%
0.90%
Sherman Securities
10.26%
Abbasi and Company
10.50%
1.3%
Insight Securities
10.50%
1.30%
It can be easily inferred from the figures provided above that the market is expecting CPI figure to land within the range of 10.07% to 10.50% in the month of October, as compared to 11.38% recorded in September, 2019 and 6.5% in October, 2018.
Pursuant to the justifications provided by these research houses, the inflation is expected to rise on the back of increase in domestic fuel prices, higher inflationary pressures, surge in gas and electricity tariffs, higher food and input costs and rise in prices of imported goods as a result of PKR devaluation.