In the United States, prices continue to rise.

The US Bureau of Labor Market Data put the inflation rate for January at 7.5 percent.

That's higher than it has been in four decades.

Inflation in the USA had already accelerated from a high level in the past few months.

In December, the inflation rate was 7 percent.

That was the highest inflation rate since 1982. Compared to the previous month, consumer prices rose by 0.6 percent, where an increase of 0.4 percent had been forecast.

The largest contributors to the rise in inflation were indices for food, electricity and housing.

After 0.5 percent in December, food prices rose by 0.9 percent in January.

Energy costs also increased last month by 0.9 percent compared to December.

For the year, food and energy prices rose 6 and 27 percent, respectively.

Excluding volatile food, energy and housing prices, annual inflation was 6 percent.

At the end of January, the US Federal Reserve had prepared the economy and financial markets for interest rate hikes in March and later for a downsizing of its bond portfolio, which currently has a volume of almost nine trillion dollars.

In addition, the Fed is ending its quantitative easing policy faster than previously announced.

According to the Fed's statement at the time, the central bankers expect that an increase in the key interest rate will be "appropriate soon".

The first market reactions to the unexpectedly high inflation figures were not long in coming.

As suspicions of tighter monetary policy grow through the data, stocks become less attractive.

The German leading index Dax was able to post slight gains by the afternoon, but turned 0.1 percent into the red in response to the data.

Inflation helped the dollar index, which reflects the exchange rate to the major currencies, to rise by up to 0.4 percent to 95.92 points.

The announcement pushed 10-year Treasury yields as low as 1.986 percent, their highest level in two and a half years.

Futures transactions on American stock market indices increasingly pointed to the negative after the figures were announced.

Although investors had already expected persistently high inflation,

the Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices were already expected to be lower for the day.

Above all, the index of the Nasdaq technology exchange is now expected to be even lower at the opening, with minus 1.5 percent.