Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Paths of Least Resistance
March 7, 2013
The main currency movement since the middle of last year’s fourth quarter has been the yen’s depreciation. The yen’s sea-change has a solid foundation, being grounded in a lower house parliamentary election that brought to power political leadership with a whole different idea on how best to end Japanese deflation and weak real growth. A […] More
Central Bank Watch
ECB Made No Policy Changes this Month
March 7, 2013
The Governing Council of the European Central Bank discussed whether to cut its interest rates but chose not to do so. New macroeconomic forecasts were unveiled and are compared below to the prior evolution of such projections, which are updated on a quarterly basis. The growth forecast for 2013 and 2014 were each revised somewhat […] More
Central Bank Watch
Bank of England: No Policy Change Now
March 7, 2013
The Monetary Policy Committee did not change its 0.5% Bank Rate or add to its GBP 375 billion asset purchase program. Analysts weren’t looking for any changes. Officials reverted to their usual pattern of not revealing any information immediately about the latest meeting’s discussions. The released statement merely notes when the interest rate and QE […] More
Central Bank Watch
Bank Indonesia
March 7, 2013
Indonesia’s reference interest rate has been at 5.75 since a 25-basis point cut in February 2012. That’s not much above the latest total on-year consumer price inflation rate of 5.31%. However, core inflation of 4.3% is sufficiently behaved, and a statement released after this month’s meeting expresses confidence that “the current policy rate is considered […] More
Central Bank Watch
Overnight Malaysian Interest Rate Left at 3.0%
March 7, 2013
Officials at Bank Negara Malaysia, the country’s central bank, implemented four 25-basis point interest rate hikes between March 2010 and May 2011 but have not changed policy subsequently. Today’s the the eleventh consecutive policy meeting in which the key interest rate was left at 3.0%. A statement on the Central Bank of Malaysia’s website reaffirmed […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Euro Sharply Higher Against Yen
March 7, 2013
The spotlight today has been on central bank activity. Shirakawa’s outgoing Bank of Japan Board stuck to the status quo, but significant further easing is expected next month from the new BOJ leadership team. The European Central Bank also made no changes but accentuated issues that tend to buoy the euro. Growth forecasts were lowered, […] More
Central Bank Watch
Bank of Japan: No Change at Shirakawa’s Last Policy Meeting
March 7, 2013
The March meeting of the Bank of Japan Policy Board, comprising six hours of deliberations over two days, presented no fresh initiatives, keeping a 0-0.1% overnight interest rate target and a JPY 101 trillion ceiling on quantitative easing. This was the final meeting to be led by Governor Shirakawa. Both he and the two deputy […] More
