The Índice de Precios al Consumidor (IPC, Chile's consumer price index), the indicator that measures how much the cost of a basket of goods and services bought by households changes, rose 0.4% in September, according to Diario Financiero. The outlet reported that the Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (INE, Chile's national statistics agency) released the figure on Thursday.
With that result, 12-month cumulative inflation stood at 4.1%. Diario Financiero describes the figure in two ways: its headline says inflation "is slowing," while the body of the article states that it held steady at that level. The outlet does not give August's annual reading or the previous month's monthly change.
The figure came in slightly below what the market expected. According to the consensus of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, the forecast pointed to a rise of 0.5%. The difference is one tenth of a percentage point, but in inflation a tenth matters. It is like expecting your supermarket bill to go up a little and finding it went up somewhat less.
According to the INE statement cited by Diario Financiero, the largest increases came in two divisions: food and non-alcoholic beverages on one hand, and transport on the other. By contrast, the insurance and financial services division fell.
For your wallet, this means price increases were concentrated in expenses that are hard to avoid, such as food and transport. These are everyday purchases, and they weigh more on households that spend a larger share of their income on basics.
The article does not include details on which specific products rose or on the incidence of each division, that is, how much each one contributed to the total increase. Nor does it include reactions from the Banco Central de Chile (Chile's central bank) or from economists.
Diario Financiero published the information as a "developing" story, so no further details are available for now. A lower-than-expected IPC is usually read as a sign of less pressure on prices, something the Banco Central weighs when deciding its interest rate. So far the central bank has not commented on this figure.
