Russia’s inflation just plunged more than expected.
Headline inflation came in at 6.4% year-over-year in September – the slowest rate since February 2014.
This reading was below the prior month’s 6.9%, and below economists’ expectations of 6.6%.
“The larger-than-expected fall in Russian inflation … is unlikely to have any impact on the outlook for monetary policy over the rest of this year, but it does reinforce our view that the headline rate will fall sharply,” argued Liza Ermolenko, Capital Economics’ emerging markets economist, in a note.
"That should ultimately allow sizeable interest rate cuts in 2017 and 2018."
Notably, the Central Bank of Russia indicated at its September meeting several weeks ago that it was done easing until 2017.
The ruble is weaker by 0.3% at 62.4829 per dollar as of 10:41 a.m. ET.
