Sunset Market Commentary

Markets: The presumed calm of the countdown to this evening’s Fed decision was abruptly unsettled by a speech of Russian president Vladimir Putin around the start of European dealings. Putin announced a ‘partial mobilization’ of reservists. He also said that ‘If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will use all available means […]

Pound Falls to New 37-year Low, Fed Looms

The British pound continues to lose ground. GBP/USD is trading at 1.3436. down 0.33%. Earlier in the day, the pound fell to 1.1304, its lowest level since 1985. Fed expected to hike by 0.75% The Federal Reserve holds its policy meeting later today, and is expected to deliver a third straight rate hike of 0.75%, […]

FOMC Hikes Policy Rate by 75 Basis Points, Signals Many More to Come

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) lifted the federal funds rate to the 3.0% to 3.25% range and reaffirmed a continuation of its balance sheet runoff. The Fed updated its language stating that “recent indicators point to modest growth in spending and production. Job gains have been robust in recent months, and the unemployment […]

The Fed Fights On

Summary The FOMC further stepped up its inflation-fighting game in September. The Committee hiked the fed funds target range by 75 bps, as was widely expected, but delivered a more hawkish projected path for short-term rates through this year and next. The median FOMC participant now expects the fed funds rate to rise an additional […]

Hawkish 75bp from the Fed, BoJ remains the dovish outlier

Market movers today We expect the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to raise the policy rate by 75bp to curb underlying inflation pressures. This will bring the policy rate to 0.50%, thus leaving negative territory for the first time since 2014. We expect Norges Bank to raise its policy rate by 50bp, but to deliver a […]

FOMC, BoJ Done; SNB, BoE and CBT Next

We thought that the Federal Reserve (Fed) decision would be the highlight of yesterday but news from Russia came to eclipse the FOMC. Vladimir Putin declared partially mobilization yesterday morning. Russia is preparing to mobilize 300’000 reservists. It’s a major escalation of the war, because so far, the Russians deployed around 150-200’000 soldiers. So, sending […]

The Crypto Market Has Chosen the Downward Path

Market picture Bitcoin is losing 2% over the past 24 hours, hovering near $18.7K at the time of writing. Attempts at intraday gains have been shattered by the adverse market reaction following the Fed’s forecasts and comments. BTCUSD has been declining for eight of the last nine days. Total crypto market capitalisation is down 2% […]

Swissie Falls Hard as SNB Raises Rates

The Swiss franc is sharply lower today, after the Swiss National Bank raised rates by 0.75%. In the European session, USD/CHF is trading at 0.9834, up an impressive 1.79% on the day. SNB sends rates into positive territory There were no surprises from the SNB, which delivered a sharp 0.75% rate hike today,  bringing the […]

BOE Delivers 50bp Hike, Sterling Steady

As expected, the Bank of England hiked interest rates by 0.50%, bringing the cash rate to 2.25%. There was an outside chance that the BoE would press the rate pedal to the floor and deliver a 0.75% increase, but in the end, members decided unanimously on a less aggressive hike. The central bank is grappling […]

Bank of Japan Intervenes to Support JPY

BoJ kept its yield curve control (YCC) policy and dovish forward guidance unchanged at the policy meeting ending this morning. Afterwards the Ministry of Finance instructed the BoJ to intervene to support JPY. USD/JPY traded five figures lower to 140.8 levels and then bounced up and down during the following hours. Japan has the world’s […]