It’s rate-hike central with monetary policy meetings in the United States, Britain, Australia and Norway in the week ahead.
Wall Street’s latest rally is underpinned by some hopes the Fed will react to softer economic data by easing up on their aggressive rate hikes. Fed chair Jerome Powell has come under political pressure to be careful of putting U.S. jobs at risk by tightening policy too much. That is down from near-100% bets on a full percentage-point leap in the Bank Rate which were doused last week by new finance minister Jeremy Hunt when he reversed almost all of former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s tax cuts.
Inflation in the bloc is running at almost 10% and the European Central Bank just delivered its second 75 bps rate increase to control price pressures. But data on Wednesday showing a shock jump in Aussie inflation to a 32-year peak suggests the RBA has thrown itself behind the curve, and beckons Governor Philip Lowe to perform an embarrassing about-face.
It's a rock-solid common theme now. Trudeau and/or BoC make a move, Trudeau-subsidized media comes along with stories portraying it as a global phenomenon. You can set your clock to it.