Q1 Inflation Rises to 0.4%
Tuesday, April 12, 2016 at 9:21AM Click here for our Clash of the Titans page.
Q1 '16 Inflation: 0.4%
Average Prediction: 0.3%
Number of Correct Forecasts: 46/558
Highest Oil Price: $43 (11th April)
Competition Progress: 34.6% complete
The CPI rate of inflation rose to 0.5% in March, compared to 0.3% in both January and February, driven by faster price increases across a number of categories (although the price of food and petrol is still moderating the overall inflation rate). Taken together, this meant that average inflation over the first quarter of the year was 0.4% - the highest it has been on a quarterly basis since the end of 2014.
This was slightly higher than the competition average forecast of 0.3%, with just 46 people correctly predicting this quarter's inflation rate. In fact, over 65% of entries thought that inflation would be lower than 0.4% (and over a quarter of people thought it would be 0% or lower at this point).
None of our three Titans were particularly close on this measure; both Jonathan Portes (Oxford) and Sean Holly (Cambridge) thought inflation would be 0%, while Rain Newton-Smith (LSE) went the other way with a forecast of 1%. Jonathan and Sean were slightly closer to the outcome, which meant that Rain fell further behind, and Jonathan keeps hold of his close lead.
Click here for a summary of the results so far, or here for the full standings.