Filtered by Topic: Monetary Policy Use setting Monetary Policy
Rate hikes still a long way off Financial markets appear increasingly convinced that the RBI is on the cusp of fairly aggressive monetary tightening. A cumulative 100bp increase in interest rates this year is now being discounted, with the first rate hike …
12th March 2021
MPC won’t respond to higher gilt yields by stepping up the pace of its QE purchases But it will reiterate its guidance that rates will remain unchanged for a long time The change to the MPC’s remit may alter the composition of bond purchases, but not the …
11th March 2021
Recent currency falls and rises in inflation have all but guaranteed interest rate hikes in Turkey and Brazil next week, and Russia’s central bank is likely to lay the groundwork for tightening too. More broadly however, low inflation and still-large …
Board acknowledges that bond market functioning has deteriorated But policymakers may be worried about impact of higher yields on activity Tolerance band to remain unchanged until vaccines allow activity to rebound fully The pendulum seems to have swung …
A series of strong inflation readings in Russia have put the central bank’s ability to meet its inflation target over the next year under threat and brought forward the prospect of monetary tightening. We think the central bank will use its meeting on 19 …
10th March 2021
Today’s dovish speech by RBA Governor Lowe supports our view that the RBA is set to keep monetary policy accommodative for a long time to come. But concerns about the functioning of the bond market may force the RBA to stop QE by the end of the year. …
The annulment of left-wing former President Lula’s criminal convictions has significantly increased the likelihood of a looser fiscal stance, which could put Brazil’s public debt back onto an unsustainable path. The central bank is more likely to hike …
9th March 2021
The reports delivered at today’s opening of the National People’s Congress (NPC) confirm that with the COVID-19 downturn now in the rear-view mirror the focus of China’s leadership has shifted away from shoring up near-term growth towards putting the …
5th March 2021
RBA responding half-heartedly to soaring yields Bond yields declined at the beginning of the week as the RBA on Monday stepped up its purchases of longer-dated bonds for the first time since the launch of quantitative easing in November. The Bank bought …
Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) left its main policy rate on hold at 1.75% today, and we have taken out the cut we had pencilled in for this year. However, with the economic recovery likely to be slow, policy is set to remain loose for a long time to come . 19 …
4th March 2021
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) left policy on hold today amid continued volatility in global financial markets. Given the poor outlook for the economy, the CBSL will want to resume its easing cycle soon, but that will only happen if pressure on the …
The Polish central bank’s latest forecasts, published this afternoon, tell a story in which the economic recovery will strengthen over the coming years and inflationary pressures will pick up strongly. But we think that policymakers will tolerate higher …
3rd March 2021
Inflation at its peak, but a fresh lira sell-off could prompt rate hikes The stronger-than-expected rise in Turkey’s headline inflation rate, to 15.6% y/y in February, is likely to mark the peak and we expect inflation to fall steadily over the next six …
The 14 th Five-Year Plan should provide a revealing view of the key challenges that China’s leadership believes it faces. High among them is a more hostile global environment. In the economic sphere, this will be reflected in calls to raise …
The Reserve Bank of Australia today doubled down on its commitment to keep monetary policy settings loose and we reiterate our view that it will expand its bond purchase program by another $100bn in June. The Bank kept its target for the cash rate and the …
2nd March 2021
Labour markets in both countries have tightened in recent months. In Australia, the unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 7.1% to just 6.4% in January. And other measures of spare capacity have tightened even more sharply. The underemployment rate …
1st March 2021
The roadmap out of the current COVID-19 lockdown announced by the Prime Minister on Monday was similar to the assumptions we had already built into our economic forecasts. As such, it didn’t reroute our forecast that the recovery will be faster and fuller …
26th February 2021
10-year yields reaching highest level since 2016 The 10-year JGB yield rose to 0.18% today, the highest it has been since the launch of negative interest rates in January 2016. (See Chart 1.) One explanation is that the Bank of Japan is widely expected to …
Should the RBI target core inflation? Under current law, India’s government issues the RBI with an inflation target every five years. The current target of 4% headline CPI inflation, with a “tolerance band” of 2-6%, runs until the end of next month. We’ve …
We doubt that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s new obligation to consider house prices will drastically change the outlook for monetary policy. But given that house price growth remains very strong, there is a risk that the Bank tightens policy earlier …
Bond yields soaring to two-year high The key market theme this month has been the surge in long-term government bond yields. While that rise is partly driven by worries that another large stimulus package in the US will lift inflation, yields have risen …
The Bank of Korea (BoK) left its main policy rate on hold at 0.50% today in a unanimous decision, and while further rate cuts are now very unlikely, we expect more intervention in the government bond market to curb rising long-term yields. The decision to …
25th February 2021
We think market participants are getting ahead of themselves by pricing in an interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada in 2022, particularly as Governor Tiff Macklem again signalled yesterday that the Bank will place greater emphasis on employment …
24th February 2021
The equilibrium level of real interest rates in the global economy may not remain quite as low as of late, but we expect any rise to be gradual and small. With policymakers at the same time taking a more tolerant attitude towards inflation, actual real …
The financial markets have started to price in a rate hike as soon as early-2023 Labour market tightening but wage growth and inflation set to fall short of RBA’s targets We expect the first rate hike to be delayed until early-2024 and bond yields to fall …
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) sounded dovish when it left policy settings unchanged today, but we still expect the Bank to begin increasing rates next year. As expected, the RBNZ did not adjust the OCR or its asset purchase program at today’s …
Indian GDP data due to be released on Friday are likely to show only a small contraction in annual growth in Q4 2020, and high-frequency indicators point to a relatively strong start to 2021. Indeed, our in-house mobility tracker suggests that activity …
The pandemic has thrown up many surprises for the Canadian economy, the latest of which is the speed at which oil production has rebounded. Even though global fuel demand remains weak amid ongoing global travel restrictions, the Canada Energy Regulator’s …
23rd February 2021
The minutes of the Reserve Bank’s February policy meeting – in which interest rates were left unchanged – show that the MPC remains cautious on the inflation outlook but that it is also committed to keeping policy accommodative to ensure that the economic …
The Bank of Japan is likely to widen the tolerance band around its 10-year yield target next month. The last time this happened, many saw it – wrongly in our view – as a form of policy tightening. It will be driven more by a desire to steepen the yield …
The strong rise in output in Q4 2020 to just 1.2% below Q4 2019 levels bolsters our view that Japan’s economy will be back to the level it reached before the tax hike and close to its pre-virus path by mid-2022. (See Chart 1.) Daily virus cases have …
22nd February 2021
Commercial banks left the Loan Prime Rate (LPR) unchanged on Saturday. But monetary conditions have tightened in practice since the start of the year. We expect the PBOC to formalise the shift with policy rate increases in the next few months. The …
Retail sales in the UK probably edged down in January due to virus restrictions (07.00 GMT) Euro-zone flash PMIs likely to show manufacturing activity remains resilient… (09.00 GMT) …while flash PMIs in the US are likely to point to a strong recovery …
18th February 2021
The account of the January ECB monetary policy meeting confirms that there was unanimous support for the policy agreed at the December meeting, when the PEPP envelope was increased to €1.85trn and more TLTROs were announced. We expect the ECB to stick to …
One legacy of the pandemic is a huge expansion in central banks’ balance sheets. Fears that this will automatically boost inflation are overdone. So, too, are worries that central banks will provoke a destabilising rise in bond yields by selling their …
17th February 2021
The Long Run is a new subscription service offering insight into issues that will shape the global economy and financial markets over the next 30 years. This Update outlines our ten key calls for the coming decades. 1. Pandemic won’t permanently weaken …
We forecast the Norges Bank to be the first advanced central bank to begin raising interest rates, in the second half of this year. This will further bolster the krone, which we expect to be the best-performing G10 currency in 2021, and will drive the …
Economic rebound means the RBNZ done easing The Bank has already slowed the pace of asset purchases We expect the Bank to end quantitave easing this year before hiking rates in 2022 Economic data since the Bank’s last meeting have shown the New Zealand …
The continued surge in growth of narrow measures of the money supply underline that the economy is awash with liquidity, but that will not trigger a surge in price inflation when growth in the broader money supply and bank lending are trending lower. (See …
16th February 2021
RBNZ cracks down on the housing market In April 2020, the RBNZ removed its existing LVR restrictions for housing loans which stipulated that banks could not lend more than 80% of loans to owner-occupiers with loan-to-value (LTV) ratios above 80% and no …
11th February 2021
RBI commits to low rates and ramps up OMOs… Indian yields rose significantly in the aftermath of the unexpectedly-accommodative Union Budget announcement but developments since have helped to reduce some of the upward pressure. Admittedly, the RBI kept …
This morning’s announcement that the Riksbank left its policy settings unchanged will have come as a surprise to no one. Policymakers are in no rush to raise the repo rate from zero, but there are likely to be differences in opinion about how to proceed …
10th February 2021
There are fears that, by making the government’s debt servicing costs more vulnerable to short-term rises in interest rates, quantitative easing (QE) is storing up trouble for when Bank Rate rises. However, right from the onset of the scheme, it was clear …
Slip into deflation no cause for concern Headline consumer price inflation returned to negative territory last month, but this was largely due to a shift in the timing of the Lunar New Year. In fact, producer price inflation turned positive for the first …
Credit growth continues to slow as policy turns less supportive Credit growth in China dropped back further last month due to a broad-based slowdown in both bank and non-bank lending. Credit is likely to continue decelerating as the PBOC focuses on …
9th February 2021
SoE extension not a major worry The government this week extended the state of emergency by a month for ten of Japan’s eleven prefectures. Tochigi was the only prefecture that was excluded as it met all six of the metrics required to lower the status of …
5th February 2021
The MPC voted to keep the repo and reverse repo rates on hold today but committed to keeping policy “accommodative” for the foreseeable future. We no longer expect any more rate cuts, but markets are too hawkish in expecting modest rate hikes within the …
RBNZ tightening looking more likely Just three weeks ago we unveiled our non-consensus forecast that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand would begin raising rates in 2022. Since then a string of positive data releases has confirmed our view that the economy …
Banking reforms back on the agenda The dust is settling on the Finance Ministry’s unexpectedly accommodative Union Budget for FY21/22 delivered on Monday. We looked at various aspects of the announcement here and here . One topic mentioned by FM Nirmala …
Our forecast that the euro-zone economy rebounds strongly hinges on Covid-19 restrictions being lifted by the middle of the year. Unfortunately, vaccine supply shortages, distribution problems and concerns about variants could force governments to keep …
4th February 2021
