Filtered by Topic: Monetary Policy Use setting Monetary Policy
Election puts focus on inflation Campaigning for the 10 th July Upper House election has formally begun. There is little question that the LDP will win – the only question is by how much. The scale of victory could have a bearing on the outlook for policy …
24th June 2022
The May CPI data showed that inflationary pressures remain acute across the economy, which reinforces our view that despite growing concerns about the housing market, the Bank of Canada will become a member of the “75bp club” in July. Inflation now the …
Chair Jerome Powell signalled this week that the Fed will press ahead with its planned series of aggressive interest rate hikes, even as evidence mounts that economic growth will be weak in the second half of the year. Powell reiterates Fed’s hard-line …
New ECB forecasts Fears about a possible US recession have prompted investors to revise their interest rate expectations down this week, but we have pushed ours up. We now forecast the deposit rate to peak at 2% next year. (See Chart 1.) Chart 1: ECB …
How will the MAS respond? There are growing signs that Singapore’s economy is overheating. Figures published this week put inflation at a 10-year high of 5.6% y/y in May. Food and fuel prices have been key factors behind the increase, but the strong …
Hello “faster rate rises”, Goodbye “gradual” Chart 1: Use of “Gradual” in Norges Bank’s Monetary Policy Assessment or Equivalent (Number) Sources: Norges Bank, Capital Economics All eyes were on Oslo on Thursday morning as the Norges Bank delivered a …
A handful of EM central banks have ramped up FX sales to provide support to weakening currencies over the past couple of months. And with inflation high and the US dollar likely to strengthen further, others could follow suit. FX intervention is unlikely …
Risk-off sentiment and the sell-off in EM financial markets have hit the Middle East and North Africa hard. Having been the top regional performer earlier in the year, the MSCI Arabian Markets Index has fallen by nearly 20% since mid-April. Sovereign …
The Mexican central bank’s shift to a 75bp interest rate hike yesterday (to 7.75%) and the hawkish language in the accompanying statement make another 75bp move at the next meeting in August a done deal. And the risks to our end-2022 interest rate …
RBA review won’t change inflation target Treasurer Jim Chalmers butted heads with RBA Governor Phillip Lowe this week over who would lead the forthcoming review of monetary policy. Chalmers denied the Governor’s wish that the review be jointly led by the …
Inflation to remain above BoJ target until early-2023 While inflation didn’t rise any further in May, it will remain above the BoJ’s 2% target until early-2023, while underlying inflation will approach 2%. However, the Bank won’t respond with tighter …
The latest Brazilian central bank communications give a strong signal that, when Copom stops hiking interest rates, it will act in a similar way to the end of the last tightening cycle in 2015. The lesson from that period is that rates will be kept high …
23rd June 2022
Having begun its tightening cycle in April, we expect the Riksbank to join the trend by raising its policy interest rate by 50bps, to 0.75%, next week. We were in a minority of forecasters that correctly predicted that the Riksbank would raise the repo …
The surge in interest rates, plunge in the stock market and weakness of consumer confidence have fuelled fears of an impending recession, but there is still little sign of that in the incoming economic data. The coincident indicators used by the NBER to …
Having surged in recent months, there are some tentative signs that EM inflation is nearing a peak. Our measure of aggregate EM inflation was steady at 7.0% y/y between April and May and some indicators of pipeline price pressures have eased. But even so, …
High inflation, falls in the lira and aggressive monetary tightening elsewhere are clearly not enough to persuade Turkey’s central bank to lift interest rates, as it left its policy rate at 14.00% today. Disorderly falls in the lira are a major risk, …
Bank Indonesia (BI) left interest rates unchanged again today, and the relative weakness of inflation means any tightening cycle is unlikely to be aggressive. We are maintaining our view the central bank will raise interest rates by just 25bps this year. …
This morning’s decision by the Norges Bank to raise its key policy rate by 50bps, to 1.25%, was in line with our non-consensus forecast. Also, as we predicted, the Bank all but confirmed that it will break with tradition and raise rates at the “interim” …
The central bank in the Philippines today raised its policy rate by another 25bp (to 2.5%), and signalled that further tightening was likely. However, with inflation set to peak soon and headwinds to the recovery mounting, we think the tightening cycle …
The minutes of the MPC’s June meeting – in which the repo rate was hiked by 50bps to 4.90% – show that combatting inflation remains the priority and suggest that tightening will continue to be frontloaded. The MPC voted unanimously to raise the repo rate …
22nd June 2022
We have raised our interest rate forecasts as banks double down on hawkish stance Alarming inflation picture points to more big hikes in the near term…. … but weakening activity will warrant a slower pace of tightening before long. It’s been a momentous …
The rupee has held up better than most EM currencies this month and the recent drop in FX reserves strongly indicates that this is in part because the RBI has once again ramped up its FX interventions. (See Chart 1.) RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has made …
While inflation is still far lower in Japan than in most places, rapid increases in the prices of some everyday purchases have made it a political focus. A Nikkei poll following the Bank of Japan’s meeting at the end of last week found that nearly half of …
21st June 2022
Equilibrium interest rates in advanced economies are probably still very low. However, there is still a lot of uncertainty about how far above this equilibrium interest rates will have to go in the near-term to quash inflation. Even if we are right in …
Ripple effects of tighter global financing conditions African financial markets are not insulated from the tightening of global external financing conditions, and recent currency weakness and rising sovereign bond yields in the region will only add to …
17th June 2022
The best way for the ECB to contain peripheral bond spreads would be via a new programme of unlimited, flexible bond purchases. This may be what happens eventually, but we suspect it will take longer than many anticipate to agree, meaning there is plenty …
We expect rate hikes next week in Norway, Mexico, Czechia, the Philippines and Egypt Headline CPI inflation in the UK may have risen above 9% in May... (Wed.) ...but it probably remained around 2.5% in Japan (Fri.) Key Market Themes The BoJ left policy …
Banxico set to follow the Fed Given the Fed’s hawkish shift and the recent sell-off in the Mexican peso, we now think that Banxico will step up the pace of tightening with a 75bp rate hike next week, to 7.75%. We argued a few weeks ago that the upcoming …
50bp or 75bp in July Fed Chair Jerome Powell suggested that officials were split on whether to continue with another 75bp rate hike at the next meeting in late July, or to revert to 50bp increases. We have another super-sized increase pencilled in, mainly …
The appointment of Erik Thedéen as the new Governor of the Riksbank will only strengthen the relationship between the Bank and the financial regulator, and could result in more macroprudential powers being brought under the oversight of the Bank. It was …
A shock, albeit with a small “s” It goes without saying that the FX market reaction to yesterday’s surprise 50bp rate hike by the SNB was far more muted than that in the days following the Frankenshock in 2015 (when the franc surged by about one-fifth …
The US Fed’s move to raise rates by 75 basis points (bps) this week to 1.50-1.75%, and the 50bps rises by a handful of other central banks, has inevitably led to questions about why the Bank of England raised rates by “only” 25bps on Thursday to 1.25%. In …
Words need to be followed by actions The ECB pulled off a neat trick this week: arresting the sell-off in peripheral bond markets without announcing very much at all. But there’s only so long that markets will be soothed by encouraging words about a …
RBI holds firm in defence of the rupee Data late last week showing a larger-than-expected rise in core inflation in the US in May, and the Fed’s hefty 75bp hike this week, have contributed to a broad-based sell-off in global financial markets with many EM …
We held a Drop-In yesterday to discuss recent developments in central banking and related financial market implications. This Update answers several of the questions that we received, some of which we couldn’t fit in during the event and some that we are …
Yen to hit 140 even if yield ceiling raised While Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda insisted today that Yield Curve Control has no limits, defending the 0.25% ceiling on 10-year yields with the kind of heavy JGB purchases seen this week is unsustainable over …
The Bank of Japan gave no ground at all to bond traders today as it left all its major policy settings unchanged. Governor Kuroda was resolute in claiming that Yield Curve Control has no limits in his press conference. But the likelihood is that defending …
The Bank of Canada’s hawkishness, a widening of mortgage spreads, and news that at least one lender is restricting new loan applications suggest the outlook for house prices is worse than we previously feared. Lenders tripped over themselves to provide …
16th June 2022
We expect the Norges Bank to step up the pace of tightening at its policy meeting next Thursday (23 rd June) with a 50bp rate hike, to 1.00%, and to indicate that it will probably raise interest rates again at its “interim” meeting in August. Recall that …
Bank of Japan may resist widening the tolerance band around its yield target, for now Final euro-zone inflation data will reveal the breadth of inflationary pressures there (10.00 BST) US industrial output probably rose at a healthy pace in May (14.15 …
Two sides of the coin for MENA as Fed hikes by 75 Even though central banks in the Gulf have followed the US Fed in hiking interest rates, the early signs are that these economies have weathered the impact well so far. In contrast, the non-Gulf economies …
By raising interest rates by 25bps (basis points) today, from 1.00% to 1.25%, rather than by 50bps or the 75bps the Fed announced last night, we think the Bank of England is putting too much weight on the softening economy and not enough on surging …
Taiwan’s central bank today raised interest rates by 12.5bp (to 1.50%) and appeared to indicate that rates would be raised further this year due to concerns about rising inflation. But we think the tightening cycle will be gradual. The central bank was …
After the excitement of yesterday’s ECB emergency meeting and 75bp hike by the US Fed, the SNB kept its end up by unexpectedly raising its policy rate by 50bps this morning – its first rate rise since 2007. Given its history of unscheduled announcements, …
The recent falls in the Turkish lira have led to increased speculation that, with the CBRT showing no sign of willingness to raise interest rates, policymakers will be forced to turn to capital controls to prevent sharp and disorderly moves in the …
While the Brazilian central bank’s tightening cycle is drawing to a close, the statement accompanying yesterday’s 50bp increase in the Selic rate (to 13.25%) left the door open to additional hikes. With Copom sounding a little more worried about inflation …
The Fed’s larger 75bp rate hike came as little surprise to the markets following the worse than expected May CPI data and Monday’s tip-off in the Wall Street Journal. Our view that inflation will remain uncomfortably high and that the economy will avoid a …
15th June 2022
Global economic activity might have contracted slightly in Q2, which would be the weakest outcome in recent history aside from the height of the pandemic and the Global Financial Crisis. Part of the weakness reflects a likely slump in Russian GDP, but we …
The ECB’s press release following its unscheduled meeting fell short of announcing a fleshed out spread-fighting tool that could provide a permanent solution to the problem. Flexible PEPP reinvestments might buy policymakers a little time, but the new …
News that the ECB Governing Council is holding an emergency meeting today shows that policymakers are taking the threat of rising peripheral yields more seriously than they were last Thursday at their regular policy meeting. Ten-year Italian yields have …
