Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Next Week’s Menu: March 21-27, 2020
March 20, 2020
Central Banks: There are scheduled monetary policy meetings in Mexico, Thailand, Great Britain, and the Czech Republic, but in the current environment, unscheduled emergency central bank meetings are likely to remain as prevalent as one’s that have been planned in advance. St. Louis Fed President Bullard, ECB President Lagarde, and Bank of England Governor Bailey […] More
Central Bank Watch
Bank of Russia
March 20, 2020
The Bank of Russia had previously lowered its key interest rate from 7.75% prior to June 2019 to 6.0% after a 25-basis point cut in February. However, this easing cycle had to be put on indefinite pause this month because a tumbling ruble is likely to raise inflation above the 4% target in coming months. […] More
Central Bank Watch
Bank of Norway
March 20, 2020
the Bank of Norway, which had cut its policy rate to 1.0% from 1.5% on March 12, cut such again on the 19th after an unscheduled meeting to 0.25%, asserting simply that “the situation in the Norwegian economy has continued to worsen” in the past week. The reduction a week ago had been the first […] More
Central Bank Watch
ECB Doing Whatever It Takes
March 20, 2020
The European Central Bank created a new Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program, which to start totals EUR 750 billion on top of the EUR 120 billion of incremental quantitative stimulus announced after the scheduled Governing Council meeting earlier this month. Together these actions represent 7.3% of GDP in the common currency area. More will be forthcoming […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Dollar Down After Fed Expands Currency Swap Network.. Equities Up in Asia and Europe
March 20, 2020
The dollar fell overnight by 2.9% against the Australian dollar, 2.5% relative to the kiwi, 2.2% versus sterling, 2.0% vis-a-vis the loonie, 0.8% against the peso, 0.6% versus the yen and 0.4% relative to the euro and Swiss franc. The swap line arrangement that enables central banks to exchange on a temporary basis their own […] More
