Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Next Week
March 31, 2017
Central Banks: Interest rate-setting meetings scheduled in Australia, Israel, India, Poland, Romania and Peru. Minutes from the last policy meetings of the Fed FOMC and ECB Governing Council will be published. Tarullo, Harker, and Williams are some of the Fed officials speaking publicly. Bank of Japan Kuroda and Assistant Governor Debelle of the Reserve Bank […] More
Central Bank Watch
Bank of Mexico Tightens Again
March 31, 2017
With the peso trading much better lately, Mexican monetary officials throttled back the size of its incremental hike of the overnight money rate to 25 basis points. However, with inflation still cresting and now above the 2-4% target in lagged response to the peso’s steep losses prior to U.S. President Trump’s inauguration, further monetary restraint […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Last Day of the Week, Month, Calendar Quarter, and Japanese Fiscal Year
March 31, 2017
Shortly before the release of several U.S. indicators (personal spending and income, the PCE price deflator, the Chicago PMI, and the Reuters/U. Michigan consumer sentiment index) the dollar was unchanged from last night against the euro, yen, Swiss franc, loonie, Aussie dollar and yuan. It had risen 0.3% against the kiwi and 0.1% versus the […] More
Central Bank Watch
South African Reserve Bank Repo Rate Held at 7%
March 30, 2017
A statement released after the year’s second monetary policy review speaks of an improved inflation outlook over the past couple of months. GDP, which grew 0.3% last year, is projected to expand 1.2% this year (just shy of the estimated potential GDP trend of 1.4%), followed by 1.7% in 2018 and 2.0% in 2019. The […] More
Central Bank Watch
Czech National Bank Policy Stays Same by Unanimous Vote
March 30, 2017
The CNB Board kept its 2-week repo rate at 0.05%, the level since November 2012, and voted to maintain its asymmetric exchange rate policy that since being imposed in November 2013 has utilized intervention when necessary to prevent the koruna from strengthening beyond 27 per euro. That hard commitment is slated to expire in three […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Divergent Monetary Policies Lend Dollar Support
March 30, 2017
The dollar is up 0.3% against the kiwi, 0.2% relative to the euro and 0.1% vis-a-vis the yen and loonie ahead of U.S. GDP data. Federal Reserve District Presidents Williams and Rosengren, who both represent blue state areas, favor as many as four interest rate increases this year. Chicago Fed President Evans is more inclined […] More
Larry's Blog
Ask Your Doctor TV Ads
March 29, 2017
Few issues have proven more contentious in the U.S. political debate than health care. Because of a quirk of history, America alone relies on employers to arrange deals and pay for a significant share of the health care bill. The fault lines in the health care debate are over breadth of coverage, its cost, the proper […] More
Central Bank Watch
Bank of Thailand
March 29, 2017
Thailand’s Monetary Policy Committee retained a 1.5% policy interest rate yet again. It’s been at this low level since 25-basis point cuts in March and April of 2015. Six other 25-bp reductions were implemented earlier from November 2011 through March 2014. A released statement justified a continuing need for a very accommodative stance despite an improved […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Brexit Dye is Cast
March 29, 2017
British Prime Minister has signed a letter informing EU governments that Article 50 is being invoked today. This starts a 2-year period of negotiations on the terms for the U.K. leaving the European Union, which will happen on March 29, 2019. Sterling is down just 0.1% against the dollar. The Ftse has lost 0.2% today, […] More
Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Ceteris Paribus
March 28, 2017
Forecasting the dollar has been infinitely complicated by all the crazy stuff going on in U.S. politics, other populist movements, and changing policies. In theory, current economic conditions and their projected trends ought to be front and center in this process, but that’s far easier said than done. To simplify things when constructing predictive models, […] More
