China Economics Update The PBOC pretends to follow the Fed The People’s Bank has raised the rates it charges when providing funds in China’s interbank market. But unlike in the US, the move seems unlikely to result in higher short-term funding costs for most... 14th December 2017 · 1 min read
US Economics Update Fed raises rates, still projects 3 hikes next year As widely expected, the Fed hiked interest rates by 25bp today, taking the fed funds target range to between 1.25% and 1.50%. Despite factoring in the imminent fiscal stimulus into their GDP growth... 13th December 2017 · 1 min read
Nordic & Swiss Central Bank Watch Riksbank to confirm end of QE this month While there are some reasons to think that the Riksbank will extend its quantitative easing programme when it meets next week, we think that policymakers will let it expire. We also think that the... 13th December 2017 · 1 min read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Update Icelandic policy rate on hold next year Following today’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged, the Central Bank of Iceland (CBI) noted that looser fiscal policy is a short-term risk to the monetary policy outlook. While we expect the... 13th December 2017 · 1 min read
Global Economics Focus The death of inflation targeting? There are many reasons to think that inflation targeting has had its day. The framework has already evolved to some extent, with central banks adopting “flexible” inflation-targeting and... 13th December 2017 · 1 min read
India Economics Update What to expect from markets in 2018 Indian financial markets have had a mixed year in 2017. Equities have surged and the rupee has strengthened a touch, but bonds have sold off. Looking ahead to 2018, we think that equities are unlikely... 13th December 2017 · 1 min read
Bank of Japan Watch Bank of Japan to keep policy loose next year With yields set to rise overseas and concerns that low policy rates may curtail lending likely to linger, speculation about policy tightening in Japan will not subside next year. However, we believe... 13th December 2017 · 1 min read
Global Markets Focus What does 2018 have in store for developed markets? We think that investors are still underestimating the extent to which the Fed will tighten policy next year. As a result, we forecast that the dollar and Treasury yields will rise in 2018. We don’t... 11th December 2017 · 1 min read
India Economics Update Rise in inflation has further to run We think that consumer price inflation rose again in November, due to an acceleration in both food and fuel inflation. With core price pressures also continuing to build, the Reserve Bank may have to... 8th December 2017 · 1 min read
Nordic & Swiss Central Bank Watch Norges Bank to become more dovish The Norges Bank is very unlikely to change its policy rate next week, but we think that it will push back the date at which it forecasts raising interest rates to the end of 2019. After all, the... 7th December 2017 · 1 min read
BoE Watch MPC to wait a while longer before hiking again While the MPC is extremely unlikely to raise interest rates again at its meeting on 14th December, the key question is whether any of the nine committee members will vote for another hike so soon... 7th December 2017 · 1 min read
ECB Watch Buoyant economy to prompt only minor change in tone Having announced a plan to buy assets at a reduced pace of €30bn per month from January until September 2018 after its last meeting, the ECB seems very unlikely to make any changes this month. It... 7th December 2017 · 1 min read
Nordic & Swiss Central Bank Watch SNB to sit tight as ECB taper eases pressure on franc Although the Swiss franc has weakened further over the past three months, we doubt that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) will sound any more relaxed about the exchange rate in its policy statement next... 7th December 2017 · 1 min read
Global Economics Focus How big a threat is the unwinding of QE? Provided that they follow the blue-print set out by the US Fed, the world’s major central banks should be able to scale back their balance sheets over the coming years without huge adverse economic... 7th December 2017 · 1 min read
China Economics Update Inflation to jump in early 2018 We expect a spike in food price inflation to push headline CPI inflation up sharply over the months ahead. But with core inflation unlikely to pick up much further and PPI inflation set to fall... 7th December 2017 · 1 min read
Japan Economics Focus Will the Bank of Japan follow the Fed and the ECB? A long period of sustained economic growth has helped drive unemployment in Japan to its lowest level in nearly a quarter of a century. Nonetheless, inflation and wage growth are both barely positive... 7th December 2017 · 1 min read
