Central Bank Watch
Japanese Monetary Policy Settings Left Unchanged as Was Expected
October 31, 2024
After a five-hour deliberation, the Bank of Japan Board unanimously deferred undertaking a third interest rate hike, leaving such at 0.25% following previous increases of 20 basis points in March and then 15 bps three months ago. They made scant change in their quarterly update of macroeconomic forecasts that projects real GDP expanding 0.6% this […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Plenty of Anxiety to Go Around
October 31, 2024
Pick your poison: the two-fisted global punch of Covid followed by a spike in inflation, endless wars in the Middle East, climate change accelerating faster than predicted, confusion about where artificial intelligence is taking mankind, and America seemingly on the brink of crossing over to the dark side. There’s plenty of anxiety to go around, […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
ADP Jobs Estimate Eclipses Influence of U.S. and Euroland GDP Data Also Released Today
October 30, 2024
Estimated private sector employment growth in October from Automatic Data Processing, Inc soared to 233 thousand new jobs. That 15-month high is twice what analysts were expecting and follows 159k in September, which was revised from an original estimate of 143k. If the labor market release due this Friday corroborates this sharp pickup in labor market […] More
Central Bank Watch
Another Armenian Central Bank Interest Rate Cut
October 29, 2024
The Central Bank of Armenia’s policy interest rate has been lowered at every scheduled review since June 2023, including 200 basis points since the start of 2024. Today’s reduction, like the previous five moves was by 25 basis points and brings the rate down to 7.25%, the lowest it’s been since December 2021. Armenian CPI […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Economic Data Flow Picking Up
October 29, 2024
The deluge of economic data that typically occurs around the cusp between tangential months has put currency market participants in a wait-and-see mode that is particularly focused on upcoming U.S. releases and how such might influence what the FOMC‘s U.S. interest rate vote next week. Today’s U.S. data menu includes the JOLTS report on job […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Overnight Dollar Movements Consistent with Expectation that Trump Wins Back the Presidency
October 28, 2024
The U.S. currency slipped 0.3% against the euro and sterling and 0.2% relative to the Swiss franc and New Zealand dollar. U.S. Republican presidential candidate Trump favors a weaker dollar to trim the trade deficit. One currency that instead fell 0.5% overnight against the dollar was the Mexican peso. Mexico would take a lot of […] More
Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
This Week’s Menu: October 26- November 1, 2024
October 26, 2024
Central Banks: The Bank of Japan heads a list that also includes central banks in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Sri Lanka and Ukraine that are scheduled to review interest rate policy. BOJ Governor Ueda holds a press conference afterward, and the quarterly Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices of the BOJ will be released. Special […] More
Central Bank Watch
Russian Interest Rate Hike
October 25, 2024
Officials at the Central Bank of Russia had been thought likely to hike their policy interest rate by another percentage point at this month’s scheduled review but surprised analysts by increasing such to 21.0% from 19.0%. The new rate is its highest in just over two decades and five full percentage points above the mid-2024 […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Flat Dollar, Equities Mixed, Many Data Releases, and a Larger-than-Forecast Russian Interest Rate Hike
October 25, 2024
Major dollar relationships show minimal net movement from Thursday closings. Equity markets fell 0.6% in Japan, 0.8% in India and New Zealand and Spain so far, but advanced by 0.7% in Taiwan, 0.6% in China, 0.5% in Hong Kong and 0.2% so far in Germany. U.S. stock futures are modestly in the black but headed […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Election Jitters in the United States and Japan
October 24, 2024
Japanese voters go to the polls this Sunday to choose all 465 members of parliament’s lower house. This earlier-than-required general election was called by Prime Minister Ishiba after he was the LDP party election to replace former PM Kishida, who had stepped down. It’s highly possible that Sunday’s vote will not leave Ishiba with a […] More
