Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, August 11th.

And this is your FT News Briefing.

The latest US inflation numbers are due out this morning. We'll give you a heads up on what's

expected. And Japan's soft bank says it'll tread carefully when it comes to Chinese tech investments.

Plus we've got the latest details on yet another takeover battle in Britain. This one's for

an inhaler maker called Victoria. One of the really interesting things about this

deal is that it is pitting big tobacco against big private equity, you know,

neither industry, being one that is exactly riding high in the court of public opinion.

I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day.

Investors who have been worried about inflation may be in for some relief.

Today the US government releases its consumer price index or CPI data for the month of July.

Now forecasts can and have been wrong, but according to a consensus forecast from Bloomberg,

the rapid pace of consumer price increases over the past few months is expected to have leveled

off. Here's the FT's US economics editor Colby Smith.

I think it will definitely be some sort of relief. What we've seen in past inflation reports

is that increase in costs has been most pronounced in sectors that are most affected by

the pandemic and the economic reopening. So things like airfares, hotel costs,

those have been rising quite dramatically. Use car prices have also increased significantly,

and that's related to semi conductor shortages and other supply chain constraints.

And so if the bulk of the increases from these reopening related sectors does tail off in a way,

I think that would help to shore off the Fed's argument that a lot of these pressures are in fact

temporary, but there's been a recent jump in housing related expenses. We've seen wage growth.

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