The focus this week will be on the September consumer inflation figure and retail trade sales for August. Statistics SA will release both indicators on Wednesday. Headline consumer inflation averaged 5.5% over the first eight months of 2017, having peaked at 6.75% year on year in December 2016. Although the consumer price index (CPI) ticked up to 4.8% year on year in August from 4.6% in July, this was still below the consensus expectation for inflation to rise to 4.9% year on year. Economists forecast the CPI to have climbed back just above 5% year on year in September, mainly due to higher petrol costs and the expected effect of quarterly price surveys of rental inflation and domestic worker wages. In addition, elevated meat prices are expected to have slowed the downward trend in food inflation.
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