Sunset Market Commentary

Markets This morning, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s post-meeting statement was a clear sign of the times. It’s too early to frontrun on an easy fix to (persistent) high inflation. Even Governor Lowe and Co, with a DNA that usually tries to avoid an unnecessary negative impact on growth, unequivocally admitted that ‘if high inflation […]

What Will the Canadian Jobs Report Mean for the Loonie?

The first Canadian employment report for 2023 will be published on Friday at 13:30 GMT and may not receive as much attention as usual. The Canadian dollar has been losing ground versus the US dollar recently, as the Bank of Canada (BoC) recently signaled that it may have lifted interest rates for the final time […]

Central Banks Actions

The first round of central bank meetings for 2023 has been completed. The RBA was the latest one to meet and, as widely expected, it announced a 25bps rate hike, carrying the torch from the ECB. A total of 175 bps of rate hikes have been announced since the start of 2023 by the seven central banks we have […]

Hawkish RBA Still Heading Higher

Summary The Australian dollar has been a solid performer in recent months and is up 11% from its October 2022 low. Given recent developments, we believe this positive trend can continue and have adopted a more constructive medium-term outlook for AUD/USD, targeting an exchange rate of $0.7800 by mid-2024. In our view, growth in Australia […]

More Fed Speakers on the Wires

Market movers today Three voting FOMC members are scheduled to speak today starting with John Williams at 15:15 CET at a Wall Street Journal event, followed by Kashkari and Waller in the evening. Also Bostic of the Atlanta Fed, who is not currently a voting member, will speak 16:00 CET. For Sweden, we will get […]

Another Hawkish Speech Goes Unheard

Another hawkish speech from the Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell turned into a risk rally yesterday. Equities gained, and the bond yields fell. Yet, yesterday’s speech from the Fed Chair Powell was hawkish. He said that the Fed may hike the rates more than what’s priced in if the jobs market remains unexpectedly strong. […]

Fed Powell Mentions Possibility of Higher-than-Currently-Envisaged Policy Rates

After Minneapolis Fed’s Kashkari, who sided with his colleague Bostic in calling for a higher terminal rate than the dots currently suggest if labour market strength persists, all eyes turned to chair Powell. The Fed chair stuck to the point made at the FOMC meeting last week in the first part (probably more rate hikes […]

GBP/USD Punches Past 1.21, Bailey Up Next

The British pound is in positive territory on Wednesday. In the European session, GBP/USD is trading at 1.2107, up 0.47%. The pound is recovering from a nasty slide of almost 400 points, in which it dropped below the 1.20 line for the first time since Jan. 23. Powell goes easy on the markets The equity […]

Sunset Market Commentary

Markets Yesterday’s interview of Fed Chair Powell at the Economic Club of Washington for sure wasn’t the game changer some had hoped for. He agreed that further rate hikes are likely (maybe even more than envisaged in the December dots), but the level and the timing of the Fed peak policy rate remains conditional to […]

Is the Dollar Staging a Comeback?

Following last week’s robust US data, the dollar surged against all its major counterparts, gaining the most against the risk-linked currencies aussie and kiwi. Investors revised up their expectations with regards to the Fed’s future course of action, admitting for the first time that they were probably wrong in pricing in a lower peak in […]