Following the ECB’s decision to cut its deposit rate and to restart its QE program, we have five more central banks on this week’s agenda: The Fed, the BoJ, the SNB, the Norges Bank and the BoE. The Fed is anticipated to cut rates by 25bps, and thus, if this is the case, all the attention may be on how officials intend to move forward. Following recent reports that the BoJ is more open to discuss further stimulus, it would be interesting to see whether it will decide to act as early as this week. We are also eager to find out whether the SNB will follow the footsteps of the ECB. The Norges Bank is the only Bank expected to hike, while the BoE is anticipated to stand pat.
Monday is the only light day this week, with the only indicator worth mentioning being the New York Empire State manufacturing index for September, which is expected to have declined to 4.00 from 4.80.
On Tuesday, during the Asian morning, we get the minutes from the latest RBA policy decision. At that meeting, the Bank decided to keep interest rates unchanged at the record low of +1.00%, and reiterated that they will continue to monitor developments, including in the labour market, and ease monetary policy further “if needed”.
In our view, keeping the “if needed” part within the statement lessened the chance for an October move, and made November and December more likely candidates. It seems that...
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