Hong Kong Monetary Authority
Busy Session for Central Bank Watchers
September 18, 2025
On this Thursday, investors continued to react to yesterday’s interest rate reductions by the Federal Reserve (-25 basis points as expected), Canada (-25 bps as well as expected), Indonesia (an unexpected 25-bp cut). Brazil’s Selic rate was left unchanged for a second straight review at 15.0%, having been hiked 25 bps in June. Meantime, more […] More
Central Bank Decisions and Price Data
June 13, 2024
The FOMC‘s June interest rate decision, updated forecasts, and press conference yesterday left an impression that was not quite as hawkish as feared. The likelihood of three rate cuts that had been signaled as recently as March is now remote, but the possibility of one cut before yearend is still clearly in play, and even […] 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
Discount Window Base Rates cut by 64 Basis Points in Hong Kong and Macau
March 16, 2020
The interest rate policy of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is subordinated to maintaining the Hong Kong Dollar parity against the U.S. dollar. The former British colony’s currency has been pegged at 7.8 per USD since October 1983, and this necessitates changes in the HKMA’s key interest rate whenever the FOMC’s federal funds target is […] More
Further Weakening of Japanese Yen
October 22, 2012
The dollar has climbed 0.6% against the yen but fallen by 0.4% versus the euro and kiwi, 0.3% against sterling, 0.2% relative to the Swiss franc and 0.1% vis-a-vis the loonie. The Australian dollar and Chinese yuan are unchanged. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority sold local currency against the U.S. dollar, its first intervention since […] More
Hong Kong Continues to Mime Fed Policy
April 26, 2012
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority retained a 0.5% base rate, one day after the FOMC kept a zero to 0.25% federal funds target. The HKMA typically copies whatever the Fed does regarding the U.S. interest rate target with an announcement a day after the U.S. action. The base rate enjoys a slight premium relative to […] More
Hong Kong Monetary Authority Follows Fed’s Cue
December 14, 2011
Hong Kong has a currency stability policy rather than an independent domestic interest rate policy. The enforcement of this goal, which the HKMA explains as below on its web site, is aided by the maintenance of a fixed premium of the Hong Kong base rate relative to the federal funds target. That spread had been […] More
