Europe's deflation eased a little in March

Deflation in the eurozone became less shallow in March, according to figures just out.

Consumer prices fell by 0.1%, in comparison to February's 0.3% fall.

Core prices, which strip out the effects of volatile prices like food and energy, are still in positive territory. They're up 0.6% year-on-year, after rising 0.7% in February.

Those figures are all pretty much in line with what analysts had expected.

We've already seen German inflation for March - the harmonised measure (where the may of measuring it matches other European countries) actually came out of deflation, rising 0.1%.

Price pressure is low in Europe generally, but there are no prizes for guessing which sticky black commodity is having a particularly obvious effect on inflation figures at the moment: