Just another WordPress site
The Fed updated “dot-chart” of all FOMC members’ expectations of the appropriate policy rate points to only an incrementally less dovish stance. Based on a weighted average FOMC members still only expect one 25bp hike by end-2023, according to our estimates. Fed seems eager to cool market concerns that it will have no choice but to start hiking rates and
Read moreThe US Dollar NEER has since 12th February appreciated about 2.3% to a 4-month high and its inverse correlation with the S&P 500 (-4.2%) has re-established itself. This is in line with our forecast that the Dollar’s sell-off in early February was “a small, short-term correction” rather than “another prolonged downtrend”. If anything we were not bullish enough. We are
Read moreMedia and analyst reports focussing on the scope for further US Dollar weakness and Emerging Market currency outperformance have continued to proliferate in the past month. The consensus view is still seemingly that a Democratic administration will fuel large US twin deficits and expectations of higher domestics inflation while Fed will keep rates on hold, eroding the value of Dollar
Read moreBarring another dramatic twist in an already torturous two months of political upheaval, Joe Biden will find a very full in-tray when he settles into the famed Oval Office in eight days time. The two most pressing issues which he will need to resolve are arguably the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated impact on already tepid US economic growth. The
Read moreThe prevailing market view, as depicted in a recent Reuters article, is seemingly that Chinese policy makers are happy to allow further Renminbi appreciation versus the Dollar driven by a rising domestic trade surplus and strong capital account inflows. The Renminbi has indeed appreciated 2.2% versus the Dollar since our last report on 22nd October (PBoC likely to keep Renminbi
Read moreThe Dollar has treaded water in the past three months, in line with our benign view that “forecasts of the Dollar’s demise as the world’s number one reserve currency are at best extremely premature, at worst unfounded”. Our fundamental perspective is that a structural shift out of Dollars remains unlikely near-term, regardless of the outcome of the Presidential and Senate
Read moreMarket volatility has been reasonably subdued in recent weeks, despite acute event (and macro data) risk in the next four weeks, including of course US presidential elections on 3rd November, and a number of significant macro, policy and geopolitical developments. In the past month volatility in major developed and emerging market currencies versus the US Dollar has only risen materially
Read moreWe are sticking to our forecast, first set out in Shape of Recovery: Square Root & Hockey Stick (5th June 2020) that global GDP, which contracted about 7.0% qoq in Q2 (a number flattered by China’s GDP), will rise a record-high 3.0% qoq in Q3. However, this implies that world GDP will still only be at the level which prevailed
Read moreMuch of the market focus in recent months has been on major reserve currencies, namely: The US Dollar which, contrary to bearish expectations and in line with our benign Dollar view, has treaded water in the past six weeks and since the Fed’s tweak on 27th August to its dual inflation and employment mandate; The Euro’s rapid appreciation in July,
Read moreFed Chairperson Powell, in his opening speech at the “virtual” gathering of central bank governors yesterday announced that going forward the Fed would “seek to achieve inflation that averages 2% over time” and therefore that “following periods when inflation has been running persistently below 2%, appropriate monetary policy will likely aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2% for some time.”
Read more