As expected the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25bps to 1.25%. Furthermore, a new programme of balance sheet reduction will be underway by clearing a fixed amount of assets each month, though the start date is yet to be confirmed.
An update to the ‘dot plot’ graph shows the median expectation among policymakers of one more rate hike this year, possibly scheduled for September. Furthermore, this will be followed by a continued pattern of hikes in 2018 and 2019.
This is a result of new economic growth projections which indicate that the most powerful economy in the world is on the rebound following Q1 slowdown.
US Dollar strength has inevitably occurred in the morning trading session on the London market with Cable down 1 cent from Wednesday mornings open at 1.2725.
Onto June A slew of strong US economic data over recent weeks had boosted expectations for how the culmination of the Fed’s two-day meeting would be presented to the public last night. The story goes back further. The narrative dominant in late-2023 of a US economy in need of restrictive monetary policy was unavoidable. The […]
Germany and the EU The Germany Supply Chain Act came into force in 2023 as a result of Germans wanting to do something good for employees in other countries in particular with respect to human rights and environmental issues. So far so good. But a combination of cost and bureaucracy overlaid with the difficulty of […]
Emergency Stop In the early hours of trading on Monday morning, sudden and significant buying pressure within USDJPY has markets wondering: is this the signal that local authorities are taking another stab at active market intervention? In a critical week for FX, with central bank decisions and a slew of top-level economic data from across […]