Filtered by Topic: Monetary Policy Use setting Monetary Policy
For most economies in Emerging Asia it will be local factors, not the actions of the US Fed, that determine the next moves by the region’s central banks. Given the poor outlook for economic growth in Asia, policymakers are unlikely to respond to a more …
9th March 2023
Malaysia’s central bank (BNM) left its policy rate unchanged today (at 2.75%) and with the economy likely to remain weak and inflation set to fall back further over the coming months, we expect rates to stay on hold for the rest of the year. Today’s …
The Bank of Canada kept its policy rate unchanged at 4.5% today as expected but, with one eye on the strength of the recent US data and the Fed’s hawkish reaction to that, it sounded less confident that it could maintain the conditional pause in rates …
8th March 2023
The National Bank of Poland (NBP) left its main policy rate on hold as expected today, at 6.75%, and we don’t think policymakers will rule out further rate hikes just yet (today’s statement gave little away in terms of guidance). But with inflation likely …
Headline inflation in Mexico will continue to fall back over next couple of years, but strong wage growth means that it won’t return to Banxico’s 2-4% tolerance band until late-2024. Against that backdrop, we think the central bank will deliver two more …
Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirmed today that interest rates are set to rise higher than we previously anticipated. But with most evidence still pointing to economic weakness and markedly lower inflation this year, we still believe the Fed will begin …
7th March 2023
With much of the global economy holding up surprisingly well and inflation not coming down as quickly as expected, investors are weighing up the risk that policy rates remain elevated for much longer than previously thought. This Update discusses what …
3rd March 2023
The account of the ECB’s last meeting is consistent with our view that the ECB will raise its deposit rate to 3.0% a fortnight today and continue hiking beyond that. In light of the data released since the last meeting, there are growing upside risks to …
2nd March 2023
Pakistan’s central bank (SBP) raised its policy rate by 300bps (to 20.0%) today, and signalled monetary policy would remain tight as policymakers look to secure a loan deal with the IMF and tackle multi-decade high inflation. We expect a further 200bps …
Hungary’s central bank (MNB) reiterated the message that it’s unlikely to cut its base rate anytime soon, when it left that rate on hold again today (at 13.00%). That said, the MNB offered some signs that it may be close to phasing out its market …
28th February 2023
A widening in profit margins could mean that inflation is slower to fall back to the Bank of England’s 2.0% target than we expect. That would cause the Bank to raise interest rates even further than we currently anticipate and/or keep them higher for …
The Bank of Korea today left interest rates unchanged (3.5%), but appeared to leave open the door to further hikes later in the year. However, with the economy struggling badly and inflationary pressures set to ease further over the coming months, we …
23rd February 2023
Even though the Reserve Bank of New Zealand slowed the pace of tightening at today’s meeting, it still signalled a peak in the overnight cash rate of 5.50% by the middle of this year. Our more pessimistic forecasts for economic activity and wage growth …
22nd February 2023
The higher bond yields that would follow abandonment of Yield Curve Control would make it more difficult to stabilise Japan’s public finances. But the long maturity of government debt means that the government’s interest rate bill would only creep up …
Being ranked by the Sunday Times as the top UK economic forecaster for 2022 is a great accolade and has generated a lot of interest in what we expect to happen next. Our forecasts for 2023 imply a tougher year than the consensus, with higher inflation …
20th February 2023
The Bank of Israel (BoI) hiked interest rates by another 50bp, to 4.25%, today and while it continued to point to signs of slower growth, it sounded more concerned about the strength of inflation than it did at its last meeting. It now looks likely that …
The minutes of the Riksbank’s latest policy meeting show that the previously dovish Executive Board members have become less so, and that the new members are on the hawkish side. That reinforces our view that the Bank will raise rates by 50bp in April …
Inflation across most of Latin America has peaked, but this is mainly an energy story – core price pressures are proving much more persistent. And underlying price pressures are likely to ease only gradually over the coming months, which will keep …
16th February 2023
The central bank of the Philippines (BSP) today raised its main policy rate by a further 50bps (to 6.00%) and increased its inflation forecast for this year significantly. We are revising our interest rate forecasts, and now expect two more 25bps hikes …
Bank Indonesia (BI) kept its main policy rate unchanged today (at 5.75%) and signalled that further rate increases this year were unlikely. This supports our view that the tightening cycle has now come to an end. We expect the policy rate to remain on …
Signs of softening labour markets across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) support our view that intense wage pressures in the region will ease in the coming months. Even so, we still think that wage growth will generally remain above levels consistent …
15th February 2023
The surge in employment in January highlights that some sectors are still recovering strongly and raises the prospect that the economy could avoid recession, although we still judge that a modest one is more likely than not. As the employment gains have …
14th February 2023
The raft of EM central bank meetings over the past couple of weeks reinforces the view that monetary tightening cycles have now drawn to a close or are very close to doing so, several months earlier than in their DM counterparts. Policymakers in some EM …
10th February 2023
We expect “high-beta” developed market (DM) currencies to weaken against the dollar over the coming months as risk sentiment worsens and, in some cases, yield gaps move against them. But we anticipate a rebound in appetite for risk later this year and …
9th February 2023
The Riksbank’s 50bp rate hike today was expected but the decision to begin actively selling government bonds and the emphasis on the exchange rate were a surprise. Possibly this simply reflects the new Governor’s desire to make his mark. Either way, we …
Brazil’s president Lula seems to be on the warpath in his quest for lower interest rates and now has the central bank’s (BCB’s) independence in his sights. Were Lula to get his way, the experience from Brazil in the early 2010s and elsewhere in the …
8th February 2023
We think sovereign bond yields in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will drop further by end-2023. The central banks of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have generally been at the forefront of this tightening cycle in terms of starting to hike rates ( …
The RBI further slowed the pace of monetary tightening with a 25bp hike to the repo rate (to 6.50%) today and, though it has left the door ajar for further tightening, the softer growth outlook and improvement in the inflation picture suggests to us …
The RBA raised interest rates by another 25bp and signalled that further tightening will be needed. We’re sticking to our forecast that the Bank will lift the cash rate to an above-consensus 3.85% by April. The Bank’s decision to lift the cash rate from …
7th February 2023
The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) surprisingly left interest rates unchanged at Thursday’s MPC meeting but, with inflation likely to rise even further above the central bank’s target, we still think that policy will be tightened further. We have pencilled …
3rd February 2023
The hawkish tone struck by the Czech National Bank (CNB) as it left its policy rate on hold again today, at 7.00%, isn’t prompting us to abandon our view that rates will be cut around the middle of this year. That said, we have now pushed the timing of …
2nd February 2023
Whereas the Bank of England and (arguably) the Fed delivered dovish surprises over the past twenty four hours, we think the ECB decision did not amount to a clear change of policy stance. The ECB is still likely to raise its deposit rate from 2.5% today …
The suggestion by Brazil’s President Lula that the central bank’s inflation target should be raised is likely to be a bigger concern for the second half of his presidential term (2025-26) than the first half (2023-24). While Lula seems to be motivated by …
While raising rates by 50 basis points (bps) today, from 3.50% to 4.00%, the Bank of England implied that rates are very close to their peak. We still think that rates may rise to 4.50%, but perhaps via two 25bps increases rather than one 50bps rise. …
The statement accompanying yesterday’s Brazilian central bank meeting, at which the Selic rate was left at 13.75%, hinted that interest rates may need to stay at their current high level into next year. We recently pushed back the timing of the first rate …
As expected following a blitz of speeches by officials ahead of the blackout window, the Fed raised its policy rate by a smaller 25bp, to between 4.50% and 4.75%, but tempered any hopes of a major dovish shift by maintaining the language in the statement …
1st February 2023
The minutes to the Colombian central bank meeting last Friday revealed that worries about the growth outlook will bring the tightening cycle to a close soon. We expect the central bank to deliver one final 50bp hike, to 13.25%, at the next meeting in …
With interest rates nearing a peak, the next two phases of monetary policy will most probably be rates being held at that peak and then being cut. The Bank of England may soon provide some guidance on both, although ultimately it will be the economy that …
The shift away from floating-rate to fixed-rate mortgages has meant that it was always going to take longer than in past tightening cycles for the rise in interest rates to feed through to the real economy. This is one reason why we think that once Bank …
It’s well known that, with the yield curve inverting the Fed is now racking up losses, but what is less appreciated is that the higher interest payments it is making are going mostly to foreign banks and money market funds. The Fed earns interest on …
30th January 2023
The shift away from floating-rate to fixed-rate mortgages presents risks as well as benefits. It will protect homeowners who are lucky enough to have a long time remaining on their fixed rate contract from higher mortgage payments. But that reduces the …
We held a Drop-In today to discuss the big economic and financial market development across Emerging Asia. (You can see an on-demand recording here .) This Update answers several of the questions that we received, some of which we couldn’t answer during …
26th January 2023
The South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB’s) smaller-than-expected 25bp interest rate hike today and large cuts to its growth forecast make clear that its focus is pivoting to concerns about activity rather than inflation. The next meeting will be a close …
The Bank of Canada accompanied its smaller 25 bp hike with new guidance that it intends to hold the policy rate at the current 4.5% while it assesses the impact of the cumulative interest rate increases so far. While the Bank did not rule out future …
25th January 2023
The Bank of Thailand hiked interest rates today by a further 25bps (to 1.50%), and hinted that more rate hikes were likely in the near term amid worries about rising underlying price pressures. We expect one more 25bps increase this year before the …
The losses which central banks are now incurring on the bonds they bought via their quantitative easing (QE) programmes are not a big cause for concern. These losses will not compromise central banks’ ability to operate monetary policy. And while …
Sri Lanka’s central bank (CBSL) kept interest rates unchanged today, and we expect it to leave rates on hold for the rest of the year as it aims to strike a fine balance between supporting a struggling economy and clamping down on high inflation. The …
The flash PMIs for January provide further evidence that the euro-zone economy has so far avoided the deep downturn that most economists anticipated, whereas the US and UK surveys still point to recessions in both cases. Supply shortages have become less …
24th January 2023
A closer look at Spain’s inflation data shows that there are significant measurement difficulties affecting both energy and core price data. However, we still expect measured headline inflation to remain lower in Spain than in most of the euro-zone and …
Recent data have shown that activity in the US is weakening as we had expected while that in the euro-zone has been surprisingly resilient. The resilience seems to reflect a combination of supply and demand factors, including easing shortages, lower gas …
