Aurelia Butler

LONDON (Reuters) – Major central banks resumed their quest to ramp up interest rates in February after a tepid start to the year with price pressures proving more sticky than markets and many policy makers had hoped for. February saw six interest rate hikes across six meetings by central banks overseeing the 10 most heavily traded currencies. Policy makers in Australia, Sweden, New Zealand and Britain joined the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank in lifting key lending rates by a total of 250 basis points (bps). All banks expected more hikes ahead. January had seen just one interest rate hike of 25 bps by Canada across three meetings by G10 central banks.”A combination of stronger than expected growth and more persistent than expected inflation indicators has prompted an abrupt change in the market narrative over the past month away from ‘soft landing’ and towards a ‘more extended tightening cycle’ by major central banks,” said Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou at JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM). Developed markets interest rates https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-MARKETS/RATES/akpeqoewwpr/G10230301.gif Recent inflation and labour data from some of the world’s top economies had surprised markets and prompted analysts to lift expectations on where Fed and ECB rates will peak. Markets now price ECB rates peaking at just above 4% at the turn of the year, while Fed rates are seen as high as 5.5%-5.75%. In emerging markets, the rate hike push showed some evidence of slowing down. Thirteen out of 18 central banks in the Reuters sample of developing economies met to decide on rate moves, but only four hiked by a total of 175 bps — Mexico, Israel, the Philippines and India. Turkey delivered a 50 bps cut in the wake of the deadly earthquake. The February move follows January that saw six out of 18 central banks delivering a total of 225 bps of hikes in January while another six met but decided to keep rates unchanged. “This (inflation) shock came for everyone together, but it might disappear at different rates,” said Gabriel Sterne at Oxford Economics. “The disinflation trend is looking surprising good in Asia now for example where services inflation has already turned a corner.” Emerging markets interest rates https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GLOBAL-MARKETS/RATES/zgvobnaxdpd/EM18230301.gif More

“If the core inflation would remain at the level we see today in Europe of above 5%, and if we don’t get clear signals that core inflation is going down, we will have to do more,” Belgian national bank governor Wunsch told a news conference at the bank.Underlying inflation in the 20-nation euro zone, excluding volatile energy, food, alcohol and tobacco prices, hit 5.0% in October and rose to 5.6% in February, reinforcing evidence that energy-driven price rises are filtering into the broader economy via wages.The ECB raised its deposit rate by 50 basis points in February to 2.50% and has already flagged a further 50 basis-point increase on March 16. ECB President Christine Lagarde confirmed this planned increase on Thursday.Wunsch repeated a view he expressed a month ago that if core inflation remains at around 5%, then the ECB would have to look at what central banks elsewhere had done, like in the United States and Britain.”For me, looking at rates of 4% would not be excluded,” he said. “But I want to insist I won’t make any judgment on where the rates would have to go without seeing the developments of core inflation.”Markets are pricing in another 50 basis-point hike by the ECB on May 4 and, after recent warnings from more conservative policymakers, see the peak of rates at just above 4% at the turn of the year. More

McMillon’s plans to stay in the role for more than a decade will extend the company’s timeline for finding its next leader, the report added, citing people familiar with the matter.Walmart did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The WSJ said Kathryn McLay, 49, the head of Walmart warehouse chain Sam’s Club, is also among those seen as potential candidates.Walmart last week struck a cautious note in its economic outlook for 2023 as the retail bellwether forecast full-year earnings below estimates and warned that tight spending by consumers could pressure profit margins. (This story has been corrected to say last week, not Tuesday, in the last paragraph, and fixes a grammatical error in paragraph 3) More

(Reuters) -A virtual event with Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller was canceled on Thursday after the Zoom videoconference was “hijacked” by a participant who displayed pornographic images “We were a victim of a teleconference or Zoom hijacking and we are trying to understand what we need to do going forward to prevent this from ever happening again. It is an incident we deeply regret,” said Brent Tjarks, executive director of the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America (MBCA), which hosted the event via a Zoom link. “We have had various programs and this is something that we have never had happen to us.” He said that he suspects one of the security switches that mutes those watching an event was set incorrectly, but he was not yet sure of the details. The decision to cancel was made in consultation with the Fed after the intrusion. A few minutes before the event was to start, one participant using the screen name “Dan” began displaying graphic, pornographic images, according to a Reuters reporter on the call. Microphones and video were not muted by the organizer upon joining.More than 220 participants were on the Zoom call at one point before it was terminated. Two spokeswomen for Zoom did not immediately return calls requesting comment. Zoom use mushroomed during the pandemic. It came under fire over privacy and security issues, including incidents of “Zoom bombing” in which uninvited users entered and disrupted meetings. In March 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Boston office issued a warning about Zoom, telling users not to make meetings on the site public or share links widely after it received two reports of unidentified individuals invading school sessions. In response to the disruptions Zoom rolled out major upgrades, including end-to-end encryption for video calls.The Fed said the event, which was to feature a speech by Waller as well as a question-and-answer session, was canceled due to “technical difficulties.” Fed events are typically highly choreographed and security is usually tight. MBCA’s roughly 100 members include banks with between $10 billion and $100 billion in assets. More