Dow Jones futures slipping ahead of key US CPI report

As covered here several times already this week, the June US CPI report is due to be released at 12.30pm GMT today. This is without doubt the most important economic event of the week. So what are the markets expecting from this data today? The consensus forecast is for the non-seasonally adjusted annualised rate of Consumer Price Inflation to have fallen to 3.1% in June, from a rate of 3.3% in May. The monthly rate is forecast to pick up slightly though, from zero to 0.1%. The core annualised rate is forecast to remain unchanged at 3.4%. The market may focus on that latter one more than the other two readings, but perhaps only if there is a notable change. Ahead of this the dollar has been on the back foot so far today and remains that way at the time of writing this update. As earlier mentioned, the Dow Jones matched the percentage gains in the Nasdaq 100 yesterday and closed at 39,721. Now earlier today the Dow Jones futures were holding at around that closing level, but more recently they have been falling back. That is probably due to trepidation, hedging and profit-taking, just in case this CPI data surprises to the upside. All will be revealed on that at 12.30pm GMT. The Dow Jones future is just now pricing the reopening at around 39,665