Bank of England
More Central Bank Rate Hikes and Dollar Rises to a Two-Week Weighted High
November 3, 2022
Big jumps in the dollar are continuing in the wake of yesterday’s sobering Federal Reserve press conference. The greenback is stronger than Wednesday closing levels by 1.5% against sterling, 1.0% versus the kiwi, 0.9% relative to the Swiss franc and Australian dollar, 0.6% vis-a-vis the euro and Canadian dollar, and 0.3% against the yen. Since […] More
Bank of England Policymakers Disagree Over Future Inflation and How Much to Tighten
September 22, 2022
The Bank of England‘s policy meeting must have had a lively discussion. Only five of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee agreed with the 50-basis point size of today’s base rate hike. Three want a hike of 75 basis points, which is what street analysts were anticipating, but one member voted to raise […] More
Thursday Central Bank Derby Results in Japanese Forex Intervention, Many Interest Rate Hikes, and One Bizarre Cut
September 22, 2022
Net overnight movements in the dollar have ranged widely from a 1.8% plunge against the yen to a 1.1% rise versus the Swiss franc. In between, the dollar fell 0.3% versus the euro, Australian dollar, and sterling. After numerous rhetorical complaints by officials about the weakness of the yen, Japanese officials sold foreign currency directly […] More
British Interest Rate Hike
August 4, 2022
The Bank of England’s 50-basis point interest rate hike to 1.75% also matched expectations, but the decision was not a unanimous one. Committee member Tenreyro preferred an increase of 25 basis points, the size of the previous four increases done in February, March, May and June. The Bank of England’s initial rate hike last December […] More
Marking Time Ahead of Friday’s U.S. Employment Situation Report… Bank of England Projects Recession
August 4, 2022
The dollar edged 0.1% lower against the euro, Swiss franc, and on a weighted DXY basis. The dollar also fell 0.5% versus the New Zealand dollar and 0.3% relative to the Australian dollar. There was no net dollar movement overnight versus the Japanese yen, Chinese yuan or Canadian dollar. The weakest major currency has been […] More
Split Vote at Bank of England
June 16, 2022
In the wake of the Fed’s larger rate hike, some analysts had speculated that the Bank of England’s scheduled policy review yesterday and today would result in a bigger rate increase than the four previous 25-basis point moves, and three of six policymakers voted for a 50-bp hike, but the majority stuck with an incremental […] More
Comparing the Central Bank Interest Rate Paths of the United States, Brazil, U.K., Iceland,Poland and Czech Republic
May 5, 2022
All six of the central banks in this comparative study had interest rate hikes announced either today or yesterday. In none of the cases was the increase the first one of the current cycles. All these tightening cycles represent responses to accelerating inflation caused in large part by external factors like the pandemic, policy responses […] More
Following the Fed’s Lead to an Extent
May 5, 2022
Wednesday saw a post-FOMC rally in U.S. equities and commodity prices but a drop in the dollar and 10-year Treasury yield. The 50-basis point interest rate hike and the details regarding Fed balance sheet reduction were aligned with market expectations, but Powell’s press conference was more dovish than expected, especially his quelling of the possibility […] More
Bank of England Tightens as Expected, and More Moves Lie Ahead
March 17, 2022
The Bank of England as expected engineered a 25-basis point increase in its Bank Rate, but the 8-1 vote included a dissent in favor of a 50-basis point increase. The rate had previously been raised by 15 basis points in December and 25 bps in February, and at 0.75% is now back to its pre-pandemic […] More
Inflation and Russian Invasion of Ukraine Casting Longer Shadows
March 17, 2022
Equities behaved in a widely diverse way overnight after the Fed enacted the first of many rate hikes. Share prices closed up by 7.0% in Hong Kong, 3.5% in Japan, 3.0% in Taiwan, 1.8% in India, 1.7% in China, and 1.1% in Australia. But stock markets so far are down this Thursday by 1.0% in […] More
