Bank scales back its liquidity operations The Bank of Canada made no new policy announcements today and instead scaled back some of its liquidity operations. But with its focus now shifting to “supporting the resumption of growth”, we think... 3rd June 2020 · 3 mins read
US Fed Watch Fed still has more policy options The Fed has several different policy options for putting downward pressure on long-term interest rates at the upcoming FOMC meeting, which concludes on Wednesday 10 th June. But with yields already... 3rd June 2020 · 10 mins read
Europe Economics Update Breakdown of ECB bond purchases reassuring The ECB has been purchasing a disproportionate share of Italian government bonds, but they are less heavily skewed towards Italy than we had anticipated. This in turn means that there may be less risk... 2nd June 2020 · 2 mins read
Africa Economics Update South Africa: how low can rates go? A look at South Africa’s recent history would suggest that the monetary easing cycle has further to run. We now expect an additional 75bp of cuts in the coming months, taking the repo rate from the... 2nd June 2020 · 3 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Australia - RBA to expand quantitative easing soon The RBA sounded cautiously optimistic when it left policy settings unchanged today, but we still think that it will expand government bond purchases soon. 2nd June 2020 · 3 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly Repo rate cut in the pipeline The fact that the Swedish economy grew a touch in Q1 adds to signs that the country has enjoyed some economic benefit from its light-touch lockdown. However, exports probably won’t save the day again... 29th May 2020 · 6 mins read
UK Economics Weekly Slow path to normality, still on track for more QE The government’s plans for a progressive opening up of non-essential stores in June suggest that the low point for the economy is behind us. But with the damage caused by the lockdown measures likely... 29th May 2020 · 5 mins read
Europe Economics Update Monetary Indicators Monitor (Apr.) Bank lending to firms jumped again in April, suggesting that government loan guarantees and cheap ECB funding for banks are having the desired effects. But the central bank’s work is far from done. We... 29th May 2020 · 4 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Normal still a long way off As the lockdowns have largely come to an end in both countries, output is starting to recover. In New Zealand, most activity is now allowed to resume, though gatherings are limited to 100 people. In... 29th May 2020 · 10 mins read
ECB Watch Another half trillion of bond purchases Policymakers have signalled their intention to further expand the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme at the monetary policy meeting next Thursday. At a minimum, we think they will add a further... 28th May 2020 · 7 mins read
Africa Economics Update Nigerian monetary easing: better late than never We think that today’s 100bp interest rate cut by the Nigerian central bank, to 12.50%, will be followed by further loosening as economic recovery proves weaker than the central bank expects. We have... 28th May 2020 · 3 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Update EC fiscal proposal provides the SNB some respite The prospect of a joint European fiscal response has helped to ease upward pressure on the Swiss franc and means that there is light at the end of the tunnel for the SNB following its recent bout of... 28th May 2020 · 3 mins read
Asia Economics Update BoK stops short of full QE, more action still likely The Bank of Korea (BoK) cut its policy rate by 25bps to a new record low of 0.50% and gave some vague assurances that it would act to keep long term government bond yields down. With growth likely to... 28th May 2020 · 3 mins read
Bank likely to expand corporate bond purchases We expect the Bank of Canada to announce additional corporate bond purchases next week. If it wanted to do even more, the Bank would probably introduce a funding for lending program rather than take... 27th May 2020 · 6 mins read
Hours worked plunge to 25-year low The Labour Force Survey shows that the number of hours worked dropped by 28% between February and April. As the bulk of the hours lost have been in relatively low-productivity sectors, GDP should not... 26th May 2020 · 9 mins read
RBA Watch RBA to launch quantitative easing in earnest We suspect that the Reserve Bank of Australia will keep policy settings unchanged at the meeting on 2nd June. But with the Bank’s employment and price stability goals moving out of reach, we expect... 26th May 2020 · 7 mins read
