Central Bank Watch
First Major Monetary Authority to Cut Rates Is in Switzerland
March 21, 2024
Among the most closely watched industrial country central banks, the Swiss National Bank today became the first one to actually reduce its policy interest rate. It is not surprising to see the SNB lead the way. Swiss inflation is particularly low, and Switzerland has a gold standard reputation of maintaining price stability. The economy also […] More
Central Bank Watch
Taiwanese Interest Rate Hike
March 21, 2024
A 12.5-basis point interest rate hike announced today by the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) also caught market participants by surprise. A 1.875% rate level has been maintained since a similar-sized increase in March 2023 had augmented five earlier increases since February 2022. In taking this additional step, officials acted to avoid […] More
Central Bank Watch
Turkish Monetary Policy Pause Shortlived and Ends With Big Interest Rate Hike
March 21, 2024
Turkish consumer price inflation accelerated from 38.2% in mid-2023 to a 15-month high in February of 67.1%. But after leaving its policy interest rate unchanged at 45% after February’s policy meeting, officials at the Central Bank of Turkey were not expected to modify their stance, which had seen the rate raised from 8.5% since the […] More
Central Bank Watch
50-Basis Point Interest Rate Cuts in Brazil and the Czech Republic
March 21, 2024
The Czech National Bank‘s 2-month repo rate was cut by 50 basis points. This third reduction since December with a combined drop of 125 basis points leaves the rate at 5.75%, still well above consumer price inflation, which has imploded from 18.0% in September 2022 to a 62-month low of 2.0% last month. GDP growth […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
A Mixed Bag of Central Bank Moves, Purchasing Manager Surveys, and Current accounts
March 21, 2024
Since Federal Reserve President Powell said the Fed’s view on inflation had not materially changed, several other central banks have chimed in with their decisions. Interest rates were cut in Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Brazil, raised in Turkey and Taiwan, and left steady in Norway and the Bank of England. Preliminary March composite PMI […] More
Deeper Analysis
Under Whom Would the Dollar Likely Perform Better: Biden or Trump?
March 20, 2024
Previous updates on this website have compared the U.S. economic performance during the Trump and Biden administrations and produced evidence pointing to a better record under the current president than his predecessor. Another question of importance concerns which of their potential second terms is likely to foster a stronger dollar. In the post-March 1973 era […] More
Central Bank Watch
FOMC Statement, Projections and Press Conference
March 20, 2024
Today’s FOMC statement matches the last one with the exception of the deletion of “have moderated since early last year but” from the sentence that now reads “Job gains [deleted phrase] have remained strong, and…” in the first paragraph. Decisions to leave the the federal funds rate at 5.25-5.50% and to continue reducing asset holdings […] More
Central Bank Watch
Preview of March 2024 FOMC Meeting
March 20, 2024
The thrust of Chairman Powell’s press conference after the last FOMC meeting was that monetary officials are happy with the U.S. economic performance — a combination of solid growth, very low unemployment, and a faster-than-imagined drop of inflation — but that they are waiting for more evidence of such satisfactory trends before beginning to reduce […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
A Focus on Central Banks, Particularly the Fed
March 20, 2024
At 14:00 EDT (18:00 GMT), the Federal Open Market Committee will telegraph the decisions from its second scheduled policy meeting of 2024. The federal funds rate target will be left at 5.25-5.50% where such has been since last July. An updated set of forecasts also at 14:00 EDT will provide the first indication of any […] More
Central Bank Watch
Bank of Japan Exits Negative Short-Term Interest Rate Territory
March 19, 2024
The Bank of Japan‘s ended “yield curve control”, a negative short-term interest rate target, and asset purchases other than government bonds and restored the primacy of its overnight rate — now 0-0.1% — as its primary policy tool. These changes were justified by the greater-than-expected 5% wage increases that came out of this year’s spring […] More
