South Africa Reserve Bank
Several Central Bank Policy Meetings Elsewhere on This U.S. Thanksgiving Day
November 24, 2022
With the U.S. observing its quintessentially most unique holiday, the dollar continued to back off from recent highs, dropping 0.3% on a weighted DXY basis overnight and extending its cumulative decline from peak to 7.8%. The dollar lost 0.9% against the yen today and 0.6% versus sterling but just 0.1% relative to the euro. Prices […] More
Only a 25-Basis Point Interest Rate Hike in South Africa
January 27, 2022
Officials at the South Africa Reserve Bank are attempting to engineer a more gradual normalization of their policy interest rate than, for instance, those at the Central Bank of Chile. Chile’s policy rate has been raised five times by a total of 500 basis points in total to 5.5% since mid-2021. The SARB repo rate, […] More
South African Interest Rate Hike
November 18, 2021
The South Africa Reserve Bank’s repo rate was increased by 25 basis points to 3.75% from a record low of 3.5% in place since April 2020. The approved decision passed by a narrow 3-2 vote by members of the Monetary Policy Committee. Analysts had been anticipating an initial rate hike this month. CPI inflation has […] More
A Diversity of Central Bank Rate Decisions… Dollar and Equities Mixed
November 18, 2021
Central bank officials today cut Turkey’s one-week repo rate by 100 basis points, left record-low policy interest rates unchanged in the Philippines and Indonesia, and are widely expected to announce an interest rate hike in South Africa. This year’s unexpectedly sharp acceleration of inflation to multi-year and multi-decade highs around the world has overshadowed Covid […] More
South African Repo Rate Slashed 100 Basis Points
March 19, 2020
The latest and largest rate cut today has been a 100-basis point reduction in the South Africa Reserve Bank’s repo rate to 5.25%. This follows a 25-basis point cut in January and an initial 25-bp cut in July 2019. The repo rate had been as high as 7% from March 2016 through July 2017. Ahead […] More
Pessimistic Mood in the Marketplace
May 23, 2019
A protracted U.S.-Sino trade war looks increasingly unavoidable. No light can be seen at the end of the Brexit tunnel, and paralyzing tensions between the Trump White House and Congressional Democrats keep intensifying. Although a preliminary estimate that German GDP accelerated to 0.4% last quarter, the May IFO Institute index of Germany’s business climate produced […] More
South African Reserve Bank Tightens
November 22, 2018
The South African Reserve Bank surprised markets with an unexpected 25-basis point increase of the repo rate to 6.75% after their sixth and final planned policy review of 2018. This was the first rate change since a cut of 25 basis points last March. Officials want to head of rising inflation expectations amid inflation stubbornly […] More
South African Reserve Bank
May 24, 2018
A 25-basis point cut of the SARB repo rate to 6.50% in March had been the second such move since last July but was approved by only a thin 4-3 vote of the central bank’s monetary policy committee. Insofar as core inflation rose 0.4 percentage points in April to 4.5%, it was not surprising that […] More
South African Reserve Bank Repo Rate Kept at 6.75%
January 19, 2018
The main South African central bank interest rate was reduced 25 basis points six months ago to its current 6.75% level. This move represented a directional shift. Six prior increases from June 2014 until March 2016 had raised the rate from 5.0% to 7.0%. The result of this week’s first policy review of 2018 was […] More
