Is Saudi Arabia moving away from China’s orbit? Reports that the US and Saudi Arabia are close to a new security pact would, if confirmed, cause us to re-evaluate our view of the Kingdom’s alignment in a fracturing global economy. Prior to the start of …
2nd May 2024
Whither central bank green policy? The role of central banks in fighting climate change was amongst the varied subjects touched upon by France President Emmanuel Macron in a sprawling speech earlier this month. In addition to pondering deep rhetorical …
30th April 2024
SARB hawkishness continues, no rate cuts in 2024 This week, the SARB published is biannual Monetary Policy Review , which showed a Bank less confident about South Africa’s disinflation trend and reiterated a desire to move to a lower inflation target. …
26th April 2024
US aid package a (large) sticking plaster for Ukraine The $61bn US aid package for Ukraine approved this week will provide a much needed boost to Ukraine’s efforts on the battlefield, but the delays that the funding has faced over recent months casts a …
The latest Summary of Deliberations showed division among the Governing Council about when it will be appropriate to cut interest rates. The data released since the April meeting favour the doves, however, so we are sticking to our view that the first cut …
Have soft landing hopes been dashed? GDP growth slows, but stronger under the hood The slowdown in first-quarter GDP growth to 1.6% annualised, from 3.4%, was more marked than expected, but it was principally due to a bigger drag from the net exports …
In a mixed week for commodity prices, one interesting development is that, after the tin price reached multi-year highs at the end of last week, copper followed suit this week by topping $10,000 per tonne for the first time since April 2022. This is the …
Colombia: drought poses inflation & growth risk The recent rainfalls in many parts of Colombia have provided some relief to the country, which has been hit hard by an El Niño-linked drought. The drought had pushed reservoir levels to historical lows in …
Recovery in activity won’t stop ECB rate cuts This week brought some more evidence that the euro-zone economy is coming out of recession. The euro-zone Composite PMI rose more than expected in April, to a level consistent with GDP expanding slightly. …
This week the FTSE 100 broke through the 8,000 mark for the first time since its brief three-day flutter in February last year and reached a record high of 8,100. This appears to be justified based on the recent improvement in economic activity. Indeed, …
New monetary tool aimed at risk mitigation, not QE Speculation had emerged that the PBOC might start quantitative easing (QE) after it was revealed earlier this month that President Xi Jinping had called on the central bank to increase the buying and …
Ongoing heatwaves are a risk to inflation The past couple of weeks have brought more good news on India’s economy. The flash composite PMI for April released on Tuesday rose to a near 14-year high. (See Chart 1.) That suggests that the strength of …
Wage increases becoming more widespread The Bank of Japan’s measures of underlying inflation suggest that the case for further policy tightening is diminishing as two out of three indicators fell below the Bank of Japan’s 2% target in March. (See Chart …
Surprise hike by Bank Indonesia Bank Indonesia surprised financial markets (and ourselves) when it raised interest rates at its scheduled meeting on Wednesday. The hike was a direct response to the increased uncertainty in global financial markets …
The last mile will be the hardest The release of Australia’s quarterly CPI data this Wednesday made for grim reading. With price pressures proving more stubborn than most had anticipated, markets have now given up any hopes that the RBA will cut rates …
Stalling privatisation drive a blot on Egypt’s reforms Having previously pledged to reinvigorate its state privatisation drive, Egyptian officials have significantly pared back their targets. This could remain the one demerit on its IMF report card. …
25th April 2024
Financial markets have largely taken the latest escalation in the Middle East over the past week in stride. Having spiked from $87pb to $90pb on the news of today’s attack, Brent crude oil has now fallen back to below $88pb. Similarly, the big moves in …
19th April 2024
Protectionism seen as a vote winner by both parties After Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged this week that there has been a “lack of further progress” on lowering inflation this year, markets dialled back rate cut expectations, with the first 25bp …
Will the naira’s rebound last? The sharp recovery in the naira in recent weeks has been somewhat of a surprise and it has come at the expense of a steep decline in FX reserves. Without substantial improvements in the current account position or capital …
GDP breakdown points to stronger services activity The better-than-expected Q1 GDP figures released earlier this week added to wider evidence that the economy has regained some momentum recently. The detailed sectoral breakdown, published a day after the …
In a week that started with Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel and which ended with Israel’s retaliatory strike on Iran , it is somewhat surprising that the price of Brent crude fell by over 3% w/w. It would be easy just to explain the move by …
Budget 2024 made a bit of a splash thanks to the unexpected changes to capital gains taxes, but we do not think the new net spending measures were large enough to change the outlook for GDP growth or interest rates this year. The encouraging March CPI …
Currency falls another headache for central banks The reassessment of interest rate expectations in the US combined with tensions in the Middle East has put substantial downward pressure on EM currencies this week, with some in Latin America hit …
Tensions increase, but hopes for de-escalation Tensions between Israel and Iran ratcheted up this week as both sides launched military strikes at one another, raising concern about a broader regional conflict. (Read our research here .) Following Iran’s …
Note: We’ll be discussing the outlook for monetary policy in the euro-zone in a Drop-In on Thursday, 25th April. Register here for the 20-minute online briefing. The financial news this week has been dominated by the potential impact of the Middle …
Worries about the currency Bank Indonesia is the only central bank in emerging Asia that has a mandate to ensure currency stability. It surprised markets (and us) when it raised interest rates to support the rupiah at its October meeting. With the …
In the previous Weekly we said “the risks are tilted towards inflation proving sticker and rate cuts happening a bit later”. This week’s global and domestic events have left our forecast that interest rates will first be cut from 5.25% in June and will …
BJP on course for another big win The biggest (and most expensive) vote in history commenced today as India started voting in its general election. Almost a billion people are eligible so given the daunting logistical challenge, voting will take place …
We’ll be discussing what a stronger-for-longer dollar means for the Japanese policy outlook and the yen in a 20-minute online briefing at 9am BST/4pm SGT on 26th April . (Register here .) Yen falling to fresh low but no intervention yet The yen …
RBNZ to watch and wait for longer On Wednesday we learnt that inflation in New Zealand moderated from 4.7% in Q4 to 4.0% in Q1. At first glance, that outturn was only a touch stronger than the 3.8% the RBNZ had predicted. However, the details of the CPI …
Gulf find itself in a bind if conflict escalates The ratcheting up of tensions in the Middle East between Iran and Israel over the past couple of weeks has raised concerns about a broader regional conflict. For now, though, it seems unlikely that the Gulf …
18th April 2024
Fed on hold until later this year The third consecutive 0.4% m/m increase in core CPI in March, coming on the heels of the 303,000 surge in non-farm payrolls, fuelled fears that a pick-up in the real economy is now translating into a resurgence in …
12th April 2024
The US dollar has surged in the wake of another too-hot US CPI print , a dovish ECB and disappointing credit data out of China . The DXY index is now approaching its peak of last autumn (~106 currently, vs ~107 on 1 st November), and our sense is that the …
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s pledge to create the conditions needed for lower interest rates means the government is unlikely to announce much new near-term spending in Budget 2024 next week. Providing that core inflation pressures remain muted, …
Spectre of former President Zuma worries ANC The big news in South Africa this week was a court decision allowing former president Zuma to stand in the May elections, which has added another level of uncertainty to the vote. Opinion polls suggest that his …
Strong US CPI puts further pressure on the RMB The stronger US CPI print on Wednesday pushed back expectations for Fed rate cuts. Most currencies depreciated against the US dollar as a result. But, while the offshore renminbi weakened 0.4% on Wednesday, …
Underlying inflation still a cause for concern The common theme from the March CPI data released this week was that headline inflation surprised to the downside in the region’s major economies. But markets and central banks have paid just as much – if not …
The stronger-than-expected US CPI data for March may have sent the dollar and Treasury yields higher but commodity prices largely shrugged off the news. Indeed, precious metals rose strongly this week, with gold prices breaking a new intra-day record …
Where the US leads, the UK often follows. So the rebound in the US CPI inflation rate from 3.2% in February to 3.5% in March and the unchanged core CPI inflation rate of 3.8% has spurred fears that the downward trend in UK inflation will soon stall. In …
Oil price rally a headache for most in EM Europe... The price of brent crude oil continued to hover around $90pb this week, near its highest level in six months, as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East added to fears over oil supply. For most …
Is Yoon now a lame duck? President Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) in Korea won just 108 of the 300 seats up for grabs in this week’s parliamentary election, down from 119 in the previous parliament. That left the Democratic Party (DP) and some smaller …
The main takeaway from Thursday’s ECB meeting is that a rate cut in June is highly likely. Big upward surprises to inflation and wage growth data, or increases in the ECB’s updated inflation projections, would probably be necessary for officials to hold …
Encouraging signs for manufacturing sector The general election is a week away and manifestos have finally been released. The main opposition Indian National Congress (INC) party has now published its full manifesto, while the BJP published manifestos for …
Markets fret inflation risks The RBNZ’s meeting this Wednesday went by without much ado, with the Bank leaving rates unchanged as everyone had expected. If anything, the Committee sounded a touch dovish, as it no longer mentioned its limited tolerance for …
Yen falling to fresh 34-year low Following a hotter-than-expected US inflation print, the yen has now weakened to 153 against the dollar for the first time since 1990. Bank of Japan Governor Ueda explicitly ruled out responding to the weakness of the …
How is Egypt’s policy shift one month on It’s now been just over a month since Egypt’s “ Super Wednesday ” policy shift and, while it is still early days, the signs so far are positive and this time might be different to past policy U-turns. After …
11th April 2024
Another robust US non-farm payrolls report has seen the dollar rebound a bit, unwinding some of its losses earlier in the week and putting the DXY index on track to end the week near its highest level on the year. With FOMC members continuing to signal …
5th April 2024
The prices of oil and gold increased sharply this week . The price of Brent rose to over $90 per barrel on fears that Iran could start to play a greater role in the Israel-Hamas conflict. And earlier in the week, OPEC+ reaffirmed its output restraint in …
The insolvency data released this week show the toll that high interest rates are putting on consumers and businesses. That is unlikely to be enough to persuade the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates next week but, with the cracks in the labour market …
Supercore inflation fundamentals still improving Inflation fundamentals improving This week brought more good news on the outlook for so-called supercore inflation. Core services (ex-housing) prices, aka supercore, are the most labour-sensitive component …
