Filtered by Topic: Monetary Policy Region: G10 Use setting G10 Use setting Monetary Policy
We expect the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to cut its Official Cash Rate by 25bp, to 3.5%, at its next meeting on 9 th April. Although activity is now on the mend, spare capacity will ease only gradually, consistent with a sustained decline in …
2nd April 2025
The latest PMIs suggest that global industry is heading into Q2 on a weaker footing. Meanwhile, price pressures accelerated sharply in the US but generally eased elsewhere. The output component of the global manufacturing PMI fell to 50.5 in March from …
1st April 2025
While the RBA is becoming increasingly confident that inflation will sustainably return to target, we still expect its easing cycle to be shallower than most anticipate. The RBA’s decision to leave its policy rate unchanged at 4.10% was correctly …
While US tariffs are a headwind, the continued acceleration in consumer prices will only heighten concerns among Bank of Japan’s Board members about inflation overshooting its 2% target. As the Bank should have a rough sense of the severity of US trade …
28th March 2025
As expected, Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers unveiled a slew of new spending measures in today’s pre-election Budget. However, we don’t believe the scope of fiscal expansion is large enough to keep the RBA from cutting rates a bit further this year. In …
25th March 2025
The latest flash PMIs suggest that while economic activity may have picked up a bit in advanced economies towards the end of Q1, the outlook remains fairly bleak. And while inflation seems to finally be receding in the euro-zone, price pressures remain …
24th March 2025
While leaving interest rates at 4.50% today, the Bank of England seemed less committed to continuing to cut rates by 25bps every quarter. We had already been pondering this possibility and today’s news has tipped us towards putting a pause in the rate …
20th March 2025
Although the FOMC stuck to its projection for two rate cuts this year, a growing number of officials share our view that further loosening is unlikely amid the increased upside risks to inflation. Otherwise, the Fed confirmed that it will slow the pace of …
19th March 2025
With the Bank of Japan sounding a bit more worried about downside risks to activity from US tariffs than about upside risks to inflation, we’re pushing back our forecast for the next rate hike from May to July. However, we still expect the Bank to lift …
Although the Bank of Canada cut interest rates by 25bp again today, it also warned that “monetary policy cannot offset the impacts of a trade war” and that it must guard against tariff-related rises in price inflation. This suggests that the Bank is …
12th March 2025
If the US tariffs remain in place, Canada will undoubtedly fall into recession. The limited decline in the loonie so far suggests markets are still pricing in a quick U-turn from the Trump administration. But even if the tariffs are soon lifted, their …
4th March 2025
The modest uptick in Australian house prices last month is unlikely to mark the beginning of a meaningful rally. With the Reserve Bank of Australia set to deliver a shallow easing cycle, housing affordability will remain stretched, weighing on the …
3rd March 2025
It is very unusual for the Bank of England to be cutting interest rates when inflation is above the 2% target and is expected to rise further. There’s a growing risk, then, that inflation fears will force the Bank to stop cutting rates. Equally, though, …
27th February 2025
Having handed down a third consecutive 50bp rate cut at its meeting today, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is likely to slow the pace of easing going forward. That said, we still think there’s a compelling case for a lower terminal rate than most are …
19th February 2025
When the Reserve Bank of Australia handed down its inaugural 25bp cut today, it indicated that any further withdrawal of monetary restriction would be limited, given residual inflationary pressures. Accordingly, we’re comfortable with our view that the …
18th February 2025
Soaring food inflation has been the key driver behind the recent strength in headline inflation. Processed food inflation will remain high for a while yet but that won’t prevent overall food inflation from falling sharply as the surge in rice and fresh …
13th February 2025
While cutting interest rates from 4.75% to 4.50% today, which was the third 25 basis point (bps) cut in seven months, the Bank of England showed some signs that it may cut rates faster and further than our forecast of a decline to 3.50% by early 2026. …
6th February 2025
Australia’s housing slowdown continued into the new year, as demand softened further. Although the prospect of imminent rate cuts could temporarily buoy buyer sentiment, we don’t expect a meaningful rally in the housing market given that affordability is …
3rd February 2025
Fed moves to the sidelines The Fed left its key policy rate unchanged at between 4.25% and 4.50% today and the accompanying statement suggests the FOMC is happy to remain on the sidelines, as it awaits more clarity on the potentially stagflationary mix of …
29th January 2025
With the economy doing better recently, the Bank of Canada’s decision to cut by 25bp today might have been a closer call were it not for the looming threat of tariffs. Admittedly, the Bank hinted that it might have to refrain from providing more policy …
The experience from other advanced economies is that there’s no hard and fast rule for how long it will take for the labour market to loosen in response to rate hikes by the Bank of Japan. But with the real policy stance set to remain loose, we expect the …
27th January 2025
At face value, the latest batch of flash PMIs suggest that economic activity remained weak in Europe at the start of the year and lost some momentum in the US. Meanwhile, price pressures seem to be increasing everywhere, meaning that most central banks …
24th January 2025
The Bank of Japan signalled further tightening when it lifted its policy rate to 0.5% today. With inflation set to remain above its 2% target this year, we expect the policy rate to reach 1.25% next year. The Bank’s decision to lift interest rates to 0.5% …
We aren’t overly worried about the impact of higher bond yields on Japan’s public finances because rising interest rates are a direct consequence of higher inflation. With the effective interest rate on public debt set to rise only slowly, the net impact …
21st January 2025
The Bank of Canada’s latest business and consumer surveys support our view that GDP growth will pick-up this quarter and suggest there are some upside risks to our forecast for another 75bp of interest rate cuts this year. That said, given the threat of …
20th January 2025
The ceasefire reportedly agreed between Israel and Hamas is likely to have significant consequences for some countries in the region, notably Israel itself as well as Jordan and Egypt. But the possible disinflationary impact for the rest of the world via …
15th January 2025
If sustained, rising bond yields add to downside risks to economic growth. The potential direct effects on real activity are greatest in the US. But higher yields in other DMs could limit how far borrowing costs in the private sector fall and force the …
It’s possible that prolonged weakness in economic activity and a jump in unemployment force the RBA to cut rates more aggressively than we’re anticipating. However, a more likely scenario resulting in below-neutral rates is that a sharper-than-expected …
Our base case is that a stabilisation and eventual fall back in gilt yields will allow the government to muddle through and wait until the next fiscal event on 26 th March before making any decisions on taxes and spending. However, a significant worsening …
14th January 2025
With long-dated gilt yields hitting multi-decade highs, we held an online Drop-In session on Wednesday to discuss the outlook for the gilt market and the implications for government policy and the UK macro and housing market outlook. (See a recording here …
9th January 2025
The troubling start to 2025 is casting doubt over our key non-consensus forecasts for 2025. But we still think other forecasters are underestimating how fast the economy will grow, how far inflation will fall and how many times the Bank of England will …
There was little festive cheer in Australia’s housing market last month, with house prices stagnating across the country’s eight capital cities. Given our view that the RBA has only limited room to cut interest rates over the coming year, prospects for a …
2nd January 2025
While the Bank of England left interest rates at 4.75% today, it struck a slightly more dovish tone. This supports our view that the next 25 basis points (bps) rate cut will come in February and that the Bank will cut rates further and faster than …
19th December 2024
The Bank of Japan's decision to leave rates on hold for a third consecutive meeting was not a great surprise. But in the post-meeting press conference Governor Ueda sounded in no hurry at all to resume the tightening cycle and there’s now a good chance …
The Fed did cut interest rates by an additional 25bp today, as was largely expected, taking the fed funds rate down to between 4.25% and 4.50%. But the vote was not unanimous and, in a hawkish shift, the new median projection now shows only 50bp of …
18th December 2024
Although the Bank of Canada cut interest rates by another 50bp today, its communications were more hawkish than might have been expected, with the Bank no longer indicating that further cuts are guaranteed and instead saying it “will be evaluating the …
11th December 2024
While mortgage interest cost (MIC) inflation has historically turned negative during, or after, loosening cycles, we expect it to remain positive this time and rebound from 2026. This is because, in contrast to previous monetary policy cycles, the …
10th December 2024
Our new Bank of England Caseometer helps track whether the Bank is becoming more inclined to cut interest rates faster and further or slower and not as far. Our forecast is that rates will continue to be cut gradually, but that they will fall to 3.50% in …
The RBA sounded more dovish today and it’s looking increasingly likely that it will lower interest rates sooner rather than later. While a downside surprise in Q4 inflation could trigger a February rate cut, we think the continued tightness of the labour …
Although Australian house prices edged up a notch in November, we remain sceptical about prospects for a second wind in the housing cycle. Given that the RBA is unlikely to provide interest-rate relief until mid-2025 at the earliest, we expect the …
2nd December 2024
While the RBNZ started hiking rates earlier during the recent tightening cycle than the RBA, it also lifted rates to a higher peak. The RBA tempered the degree of tightening in order to preserve the large falls in unemployment seen during the pandemic and …
28th November 2024
The latest flash PMIs suggest that while industry continues to struggle across advanced economies, services activity is now slowing in Europe too. While reduced political uncertainty seems to have lifted business sentiment in the US, the PMIs suggest that …
22nd November 2024
We expect the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to cut its policy rate by 50bp, to 4.25%, at its meeting next week. With inflation back at target, the labour market loosening rapidly and activity in the doldrums, there continues to be a compelling case for the …
20th November 2024
As expected, after a run of stronger activity and inflation data since it started its rate cutting cycle with a 50bp reduction in mid-September, the Fed opted for a more modest 25bp cut at the conclusion of its two-day FOMC meeting, taking the fed funds …
7th November 2024
Watch a recording of our post-MPC online briefing here . While cutting interest rates from 5.00% to 4.75% today, the Bank of England implied that the Budget means rates will continue to fall only gradually. We agree and due to the Budget (and not the US …
Although the Reserve Bank of Australia maintained a broadly neutral stance at its meeting today, we still think it will start to lower interest rates as soon as February next year. However, with the labour market remaining resilient and productivity …
5th November 2024
BoJ Governor Ueda sounded more optimistic today and we’re sticking to our forecast of another rate hike at the Bank’s next meeting in December, though we don’t expect further tightening in 2025 . It came as no surprise that the Bank left its policy rate …
31st October 2024
The government’s new immigration plan implies that the population will decline by 0.2% in both 2025 and 2026, a huge shift from population growth of almost 3% over the past two years. That means GDP growth is likely to remain subdued in the next couple of …
24th October 2024
The latest flash PMIs suggest that GDP growth got off to a weak start in Q4 in most major advanced economies. The surveys also imply a slowdown in both services activity and employment growth in October, meaning that the ECB and Bank of England may up the …
We discussed the Bank’s policy decision in a Drop-In. You can view the recording here . The weak economic backdrop means we still see a strong case for the Bank of Canada to follow its larger 50bp cut today, which took the policy rate to 3.75%, with …
23rd October 2024
