Europe Vexed By Intractable Stagflation

Christine Lagarde's noncommittal approach to future monetary tightening was validated Monday by mixed top-tier data. GDP and inflation figures for July painted a murky picture of the European economy 12 months on from the first rate hike and 16 months into the first major ground war since the Reich. The inflation numbers came in a bit warm. Core inflation likely ran at 5.5% in July, Eurostat said. That was ahead of consensus and unchanged from June's upwardly revised pace. Note that core pr