National Bank of Poland
Attention to What Central Banks Are Doing with Interest Rates
June 5, 2025
The European Central Bank is widely expected to cut its interest rate for the eighth time in the past year. An anticipated 25-basis point reduction of the deposit rate to 2.0% would bring the cumulative drop to 250 basis points from peak. President Trump has been haranguing Federal Reserve Chairman Powell for not cutting interest […] More
Polish and Czech Central Bank Rate Cuts
May 7, 2025
Officials at the Czech National Bank cut their two-week repo rate by 25 basis points to 3.50%, its lowest level since December 2021 and down from a cycle peak of 7.0% maintained for a full year prior to an initial cut in December 2023. One of the seven voters behind this decision preferred to leave […] More
Federal Reserve Tops a List of Many Central Banks Deciding Interest Rate Levels
May 7, 2025
Today’s FOMC decision at 18:00 GMT (14:00 EDT) is universally expected to be an unchanged federal funds target range of 4.25-4.50%. Updated macroeconomic forecasts are not scheduled at this meeting, so the focus will be on what Fed Chairman Powell says at his press conference, which begins at 14:30 EDT and, even more influentially, how […] More
Sour Investor Mood Ahead of U.S. PPI Release
March 13, 2025
U.S. equities got only a dead-cat bounce from Wednesday’s slightly better-than-expected consumer price data and are back showing red ahead of producer price figures due shortly. With his assortment of U.S. policy about-faces, President Trump has acquired a Grinch-like aura in the world financial community. At this writing, The dollar is down 0.2% against the […] More
Continuing Firestorm of Trump Statements Overwhelms an Otherwise Busy Day of Data Releases and Central Bank Decisions
February 5, 2025
The dollar fell overnight by 0.2% against the euro, Swissy, sterling and Canadian dollar but jumped 1.2% versus China’s yuan and 0.8% relative to the Mexican peso. In other financial market action, Nasdaq futures took a notable hit. Share prices in the Pacific Rim closed up 1.6% in Taiwan, 1.1% in South Korea and 0.5% […] More
Dollar & Equities Lifted by Persistent Hopes of Further Fed Easing
January 17, 2025
A series of U.S. price reports this week either met or undershot analyst predictions. Fears of a Fed interest rate hike have gone away for now, and hopes for one or two cuts later in 2025 remain alive. A second source of market relief came from news that the Israeli cabinet has approved the temporary […] More
Fed Rate Cut Hopes and Several Economic Data Releases
December 4, 2024
By a three to one margin, financial markets anticipate a 25-basis point interest rate cut from the Fed later this month, compared to a minority view that officials may choose not to ease at this time. Several U.S. data releases occurred this Friday: ADP estimates that 146k private-sector jobs were created in November, which is […] More
Republican Victory Lifts Dollar, U.S. Equities, and 10-Year Treasury Yield Sharply
November 6, 2024
Donald Trump’s declared electoral votes topped the magical 270 much more quickly than had been expected. Republicans also recaptured a senate majority and lead in House seat contest with 57 still undecided. Trump has a 3.5 percentage point majority in the popular vote. Jill Stern and RFK Jr. combined siphoned off 0.8 percentage points of […] More
Strong Yen Sales
October 2, 2024
Japan’s ultra-loose monetary policy when other central banks scrambled to tame a sharp rise inflationary pressure in 2021-3 had encouraged investors to borrow essentially free money offered in Japan and invest in higher yielding assets elsewhere. Those so-called carry trades are now being reversed and consequently driving down the yen, which slumped 0.9% against the […] More
Speculation that the Fed Cuts By 50 BPS Gaining Traction
September 5, 2024
The cooling U.S. labor market is a main focus with a series of key releases this week. Investors learned yesterday that job openings and quits dropped more sharply in July. Later in the day came the release of the Fed’s Beige Book with nine regional districts showing stagnation or slight economic contraction, and only the […] More
