Economy

This article is an on-site version of our Chris Giles on Central Banks newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every TuesdayThe Federal Reserve revealed it was not itching to cut rates as early as March after its meeting last Wednesday, a view that will have been reinforced by very strong US jobs figures on Friday. As things stand, the meeting on March 20 will be more important in setting out how many rate cuts the Fed thinks are necessary in 2024 rather than immediate action. Are financial markets right to scale back their expectations of US rate cuts in 2024? Email me: [email protected] Dhingra on her vote to cut UK ratesThough most eyes were on the US Federal Open Market Committee last week, the Bank of England’s pivot towards rate cutting was in many ways more interesting. The UK central bank’s forecasts were logical and the communication of its dovish switch was smooth and effective. It has been a very long time since I have been able to say that about the BoE. I received quite a lot of odd commentary from economists after the meeting suggested the BoE remains hawkish (because the inflation forecast was a little over 2 per cent on the main BoE forecasts). A better way of looking at the evolution of the Bank’s view is to look at how the inflation forecasts have changed based on the assumption that interest rates remain constant at 5.25 per cent. In the interactive chart below, you can also see the lower price level the BoE now expects. It shows the central bank is now much less worried about inflation. This was a dovish pivot.You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.Andrew Bailey got close to validating market forecasts for rate cuts by saying the Monetary Policy Committee just wanted more evidence of good inflationary news before it would cut. That could come by May or June. The governor certainly did not try to tell markets they were getting too excited and the lack of movement in the forward interest rate curve after the meeting pleased officials. The February meeting was not an attempt to influence market pricing. The most interesting vote on the MPC came from external member Swati Dhingra, who voted for an immediate easing of policy seeking a quarter point cut from 5.25 per cent to 5 per cent. I caught up with her after the meeting and the following is a transcript of our conversation, edited for clarity and brevity. Why did you vote to cut rates?Swati Dhingra: The amount of time it took to get rates up was long, and couple that with the transmission lags and we’re basically still looking at a pretty restrictive period of monetary policy even after you start the moderation. The data points that was important for me is that it’s now almost six months since we’ve seen consumer price inflation turn and in a pretty firm way. If you look not just at the mean CPI inflation, but the median as well, you see a very similar pattern. If you break down even further the 85 items in the index and look at all the 105 producer price index items and you look at what happened to [the annual inflation rate] at the turning point, CPI pretty much lags behind PPI by six or seven months. So I was fairly convinced that this wasn’t just energy driving everything. At this point about 97 per cent [of annual CPI inflation items] have turned down. In December, you voted for rates to stay at 5.25 per cent. So what’s changed?SD: Compared with December, we were hearing from the [regional] agents that people are saving up for the special treat for the festive season. So I was waiting for information and if we had seen a really sharp increase in retail sales or some kind of sharp increase in consumer prices, particularly on services. The fall in retail sales is pretty convincing. If anything, I think it was a bit unexpected. So I’m not fully convinced there’s some kind of really sharp excess demand in the economy coming from the consumption side.Many on the MPC are concerned about services prices being sticky. How do you see this element of inflation? SD: There is no denying that sharp improvement in the services price inflation numbers is lacking. But if you look at all the items — goods and services — the [annual inflation] numbers are looking very close to where they were in 2017 to 2019 averages. If you look at services inflation, the renormalisation has started, but we’re not at 2017 to 2019 averages. So there is some way to go. I think some of the arguments need to be made more symmetrically. We knew that services inflation would be slower to react on the way up and it’s going to happen on the way down too, in my view. I remember when I had just joined the MPC there was a very sharp increase in the restaurant catering services prices. That being said, this is one place where I had to make a judgment call that at some point you’re going to see the turning point [in services inflation]. I think broadly, the goods price deflation is going to be big enough that the services price inflation, even with some stickiness, is just about enough to get back to target inflation.What about wages?SD: If you look at the numbers on wage growth now they still look like they’re high; if you look at the numbers later on in the forecast, they look lower. But I’m not going to advocate what wage growth should be because if you do go back to the pre-global financial crisis era when interest rates were pretty high, we had subdued inflation and we still had wage growth of some 4 to 5 per cent. So it’s not out of line with the history.What do you see are the risks of not cutting rates? SD: You’re asking me what would the counterfactual look like? I think most of us can agree, broadly, that policy tightening has had an impact on growth. I find it striking that even though we are seeing higher-than-historic rates of wage growth, the consumption numbers look so weak, with a 5.9 per cent drop relative to pre-pandemic levels. That fall in consumption is going to stay and that’s where the lagged effects of monetary policy tightening are still to come. I don’t see a reason to trade off weak consumption when we know that inflation is on a sustainable path at this point. The BoE’s forecasts are interesting. It produces two, one with constant interest rates at 5.25 per cent and one using the market path which sees rates fall two percentage points in just over two years. The difference in inflation outcomes from this large difference in monetary policy is small. Do you think the BoE’s models are underestimating the power of monetary policy?SD: When you look at the constant-rate forecasts and compare them with the ones conditioned on the market path, sometimes the difference in monetary policy would be pretty big, but the inflation that you would get would be pretty small. But if you compare what [the different interest rate paths] do to economic activity, it is actually quite big. To the extent that economic activity may not be a primary goal, but is a secondary goal of the MPC, why would you want to sacrifice any growth if you’re not making a really big dent on inflation?You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.Ben Broadbent, deputy governor, gave a speech where he talked about our lack of knowledge and that was an argument to wait before cutting rates. Why have you taken a different view? SD: I think that’s an OK argument. I find it sort of plausible that maybe what we’ve learnt from the last two years of inflation and particularly domestic inflationary pressures is that we have more to learn. And if tomorrow my assessment right now is not accurate, then maybe we should have waited. But I don’t necessarily buy the argument that you need to wait simply because cutting now sends the wrong message or a policy reversal is a bad thing. There are arguments on both sides. And my argument on the other side would be that with the kind of consumption weakness that we’re seeing it’s sort of hard to imagine how that’s going to get reversed so sharply that you will see a resurgence of inflation.The second bit is that at some point we [have to ask what more] we have to learn. We have learnt, and we didn’t see the wage price spiral that most people were concerned about. We also don’t see profiteering from companies. I’m more concerned that we might be underplaying the downside risks, particularly as we’ve been lucky to have the buffer from the pandemic savings to tide people over. That’s waning now. And job vacancies have really dropped. So, you might actually see that the real economy starts to get negatively hit in a more profound way. I don’t see why we should be risking that.Is reversing course on interest rates if you cut too early the worst thing that central banks can do?SD: OK, there might be some kind of financial market psychology, but I still think that if you do the right policy and if you even deviate for the right reasons, people understand. So I’m not that worried about it. There’s the second argument, which is now you’ve got to stay the course because, at least from the historical evidence, it looks like [the times policy did that] it resolved high inflation. But if you look at the UK in the late 1970s and early 80s, monetary policy stayed tight that’s true, but gross domestic product really sharply contracted and unemployment went up from 5 to 12 per cent. It’s not till the 1990s that you see a trough to 6.9 per cent. This is not a soft landing. I mean, we’re in a very different situation right now. So why do we want to ever take that risk that we end up in that situation? I don’t find the evidence particularly compelling.You have a reputation as a dove. Is this a correct characterisation?SD: I’ve always found that sort of labelling strange. But yes, I voted always much lower than most of the people on the MPC. I think there were reasons to be worried about inflation. We haven’t seen this kind of inflationary pressure in the history of the MPC. So there were reasons to be cautious and there were reasons to put up rates, particularly given where they were at very, very minimal level. So I think that was a reasonable thing to do. But where I differ from the committee was, I think a more moderate path of rate changes would be better, it’s easier to adjust from that. Otherwise, we’re going to have to make bigger adjustments. From your experience, what is the most effective way of persuading the committee to vote with you?SD: I don’t come from a monetary policy world and I had to learn very quickly in the first two or three months how the central banking world works. There’s much more volatility in the data than most of us who look at longer horizons see. That was one lesson. The second was if you want to convince people, you better have really sound evidence to back it up. What I’ve been reading and watchingFor a round-up of recent global monetary policy, my FT colleagues have produced this comprehensive big readWe produced lots of great US coverage this week. Also watch Jay Powell on 60 Minutes here where he says a March rate cut is unlikely unless the economy tanks. His press conference is hereOf course, someone is always unhappy. This time it is Donald Trump saying he would replace Powell (who he appointed). Quelle surpriseFor an in-depth look at central bank losses over at the FT specialist site, go to Banking Risk & Regulation. This link gets you special accessMartin Sandbu claims victory for team transitory. It is thought-provoking. He likes the inflationary outcome, but in my view does not credit monetary policy sufficiently A chart that mattersIn one part of our interview Dhingra said she didn’t much like looking at monthly inflation numbers because they were so volatile. She is right about that. But the IMF has come up with a lovely global chart using the data averaged over 57 countries to smooth the results. The data accounts for 78 per cent of global output and is one of the most strikingly simple and effective descriptions of global disinflation trends in both headline and core that I have seen. You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.Recommended newsletters for you Free lunch — Your guide to the global economic policy debate. Sign up hereTrade Secrets — A must-read on the changing face of international trade and globalisation. Sign up here More

NICOSIA (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is confident that inflation is coming back to its 2% target and that its next move will be cutting interest rates, policymaker Pablo Hernandez de Cos said on Tuesday.”It is already very important for European citizens to know that we are confident the next move will be a cut,” the Spanish central bank governor told an event in Cyprus. “I think it’s also wise not to be precise (on the timing).” More

The brokerage earlier expected the economy to enter a mild recession as the Federal Reserve tightened interest rates to tame inflation, narrowing the window for a soft landing.Deutsche Bank said in a note on Monday that it now expects the U.S. economy to grow by 1.9% this year, on a quarterly average basis, compared with its prior forecast of 0.3%.”Though the economy continues to face several headwinds – namely, still-tight credit conditions, rising consumer delinquency rates and a slowing labor market – the resilience to date points to a more benign slowdown in 2024 than we had previously projected,” said Matthew Luzzetti, the brokerage’s chief U.S. economist.Deutsche Bank still expects the Fed to start easing interest rates from June, but now expects 100 basis points (bps) of rate cuts this year, less than its earlier expectation of 175 bps.The U.S. economy grew a faster-than-expected 3.3% in the fourth quarter, amid strong consumer spending, with growth for the full year coming in at 2.5%, shrugging off dire predictions of a recession after the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes. More

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock said on Tuesday the “Taylor Swift inflation” effect has forced some spending adjustments, including in her own children, but played down the policy impact as the pop singer prepares to arrive in the country.Swift’s Eras Tour is the first in history to gross over $1 billion, according to industry estimates, with billions more spent by fans on transportation and accommodation. Her world tour, along with others by acts including Beyonce and Coldplay, has been cited by some experts as a factor in temporarily spurring inflation in several countries including the United States. Others have said the impact of the concerts on inflation are overstated. “I know all about Taylor Swift inflation as well, myself” Bullock told a news conference in response to a question on whether the huge demand for Taylor Swift tickets was an example of the type of services inflation mentioned frequently as a policy risk by the RBA.Citing the example of her own children, Bullock said that fans had adjusted their spending elsewhere to afford the tour tickets and associated spending. “People are deciding what’s really important to them and what’s not as important to them,” Bullock said, after the RBA had earlier held rates steady. “Clearly, for a lot of people, Taylor Swift is very important.” Swift begins the first of seven Australian dates in Melbourne on Feb. 17, on a tour where top-price tickets cost A$1,250 ($814), and many fans are expected to travel long distances to attend – including from overseas. Michael Johnson, CEO of Accommodation Australia, the trade body representing the hotel industry, said “phenomenal” demand from Swift’s tour had resulted in very high hotel occupancy rates in Sydney and Melbourne, the two cities Swift is playing in, and would likely benefit other hospitality sectors. “We know that all of the hospitality (industry), restaurants and bars and tourism attractions, all benefit, because people won’t only come for one night, sometimes they’ll come for two or three and they’ll do some of those activities and events that are popular in the respective cities that they’re in,” he said. Bullock, who took over as RBA governor in September, said the central bank’s rate rises could have had an indirect impact on services price inflation, including things like electricity and insurance. “It can indirectly impact, because these sorts of costs go into business costs, obviously – non-labour costs – and to the extent that demand is tempered, it tempers the ability of them to pass on costs.”“This is the way that you can end up with an indirect impact of monetary policy on these sorts of services.”($1 = 1.5363 Australian dollars) More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Australia’s central bank has cut the country’s economic growth forecast, citing the impact of higher interest rates and the prospect of a slowdown in Chinese consumption despite “encouraging” signs that inflation has started to ease. The Reserve Bank of Australia said its lower near-term projections reflected a weaker outlook for domestic spending. Governor Michele Bullock said controlling inflation remained a key RBA goal and refused to rule out further interest rate rises, although analysts and the bank’s own assumptions are factoring in rate cuts this year.“Grocery prices increased by 20 per cent over the past two years. That’s massive,” she said.Annual inflation dropped to 4.1 per cent in the December quarter, a sharp reduction from the 5.4 per cent recorded in the September period, and the RBA reduced its inflation forecasts as a result. Nonetheless inflation was not expected to return to the target range of 2-3 per cent before 2025, the bank said.The RBA cut its projection for gross domestic product growth to 1.3 per cent by June 2024, from 1.8 per cent forecast in November, and lowered its estimates out to 2025.Bullock said the forecasts also took into account an expected slowdown in China, after the bank warned that a “prolonged cyclical downturn” would pose a risk. Australia is a big commodities exporter to China, while education and tourism are also exposed to the health of the Asian economy, which has been hit by a downturn in the property sector.The bank’s press conference on Tuesday ushered in a new era for the RBA after a review of its operations last year triggered the biggest shake-up in its history. Bullock was appointed as governor last year.The RBA has new obligations to improve the transparency of its policymaking and is preparing to form a board dedicated to setting interest rates this year. It has also committed to addressing accusations that the bank was too hierarchical and that its board had not been challenged enough in its decision-making. Andrew Hauser, a 30-year Bank of England veteran, was appointed as Bullock’s deputy in December, and Sarah Hunter joined from Oxford Economics as the bank’s chief economist last month.Paul Bloxham, chief economist with HSBC Australia and a former RBA official, said the review had triggered a lot of procedural change at the central bank, but its core inflation target and rate-setting tools remained the same. “There is more process change than fundamental change,” he said.Nonetheless, the move to hold press conferences afforded Bullock an opportunity to explain the bank’s approach in less technical terms than in its formal statements.She used the example of demand for tickets for Taylor Swift’s Australian tour this month as an example of how high service-sector inflation was affecting consumer behaviour.“People are deciding what’s important to them and what’s not important to them and clearly for a lot of people Taylor Swift is very important,” she said. More

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia’s central bank held interest rates steady on Tuesday but cautioned that a further increase could not be ruled out given inflation was still too high, a strong signal that it isn’t in a hurry to start easing policy anytime soon.The relatively hawkish tone of the central bank’s statement boosted the Australian dollar and saw futures push out the likely timing of a first easing to September from August.. Wrapping up its first policy meeting of the year, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) kept rates at a 12-year high of 4.35%, but left the door open to another rise if needed.Markets had wagered heavily on a steady outcome given inflation had eased by more than expected in the fourth quarter, but the RBA statement indicated it was still not confident that inflation was on a sustainable path towards its 2%-3% target.”While recent data indicate that inflation is easing, it remains high… The Board needs to be confident that inflation is moving sustainably towards the target range,” said the RBA Board in a statement.The central bank did trim its forecasts for inflation and economic growth but emphasised demand was still running ahead of supply, suggesting it would be in no rush to cut rates.The Australian dollar rose 0.4% to $0.6512, having hit an 11-week low of $0.6469 overnight. Three-year bond futures were down 5 ticks to 96.3 and markets moved to price in the first cut will come in September, from August before the RBA statement.RATE RISKS BALANCEDThe RBA has jacked up interest rates by 425 basis points since May 2022 to tame stubbornly high inflation. While inflation fell to a two-year low of 4.1% in the fourth quarter and some distance from the 2022 peak of 7.8%, it is still well above target. All the same, the economy has slowed to a crawl, the red-hot labour market has started to loosen and consumer spending remained soft amid cost of living pressures and high mortgage rates. RBA Governor Michele Bullock, in her first press conference under a new reporting system for the rate decision, said the bank’s board needed to be convinced that inflation was moving sustainably to target before thinking about rate cuts. “We haven’t ruled anything out and we haven’t ruled anything in… The optionality here really needs to be maintained because we need to be driven by the data.”CBA’s head of Australian economics Gareth Aird said he does not expect the RBA to act on its hiking bias, tipping a first rate cut to come in September. “It will take more than just weak economic growth for the RBA to entertain the idea of policy easing,” he added.”The unemployment rate will likely need to rise a little more quickly than the RBA anticipates and inflation will need to fall a little faster, and we expect both of those outcomes to transpire.”The RBA is following several other central banks in resisting pressure for early cuts. Economic resilience and hawkish Federal Reserve commentary have recently led investors to push back the start of U.S. easing from March to June.”We doubt that the (RBA) Board are even thinking about rate cuts yet,” said Luci Ellis, chief economist at Westpac and a former RBA official. “We continue to expect the RBA to reach this level of comfort around September.” More

BANGKOK (Reuters) -On the eve of a Thai central bank meeting expected to leave interest rates unchanged at a decade high, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin called again on Tuesday for a cut in borrowing costs to revive economic growth.The prime minister, who is also the finance minister, has been at loggerheads with the central bank over the direction of monetary policy, arguing the economy needed support and inflation was not a threat.”If there is a crisis or something happens, it can still be reduced a lot. Why don’t we start doing it today?” he said, warning that after four straight months of falling consumer prices, the country faced the risk of deflation.Inflation is below the lower end of the central bank’s target range, so even if interest rates were cut from their current level of 2.50% to 2.25%, there would be “a lot of room” for further cuts, he told reporters.Despite the pressure, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) is expected to leave its policy rate unchanged at a scheduled review on Wednesday, a Reuters poll showed.BOT Governor Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput recently told Reuters that monetary policy was “broadly neutral” and the economy was not in crisis.Srettha said fiscal and monetary policy must work together to help revive Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, which he has described as in crisis.”I believe we still can work together,” he said, referring to the central bank.Srettha – a real estate mogul and political newcomer – has repeatedly said the economy needs a big boost and his government will forge ahead with a controversial $14 billion handout scheme, though it might be delayed, pending more consultation.The so-called “digital wallet” scheme would transfer 10,000 baht ($280) each to 50 million Thais to spend in six months, but has been hounded by concerns over how it will be funded, with some experts calling it fiscally irresponsible.Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat said on Monday the government would meet to discuss the handout scheme next week and was sticking with the current plan for now.It will also push for a borrowing bill to finance the programme, he said. ($1 = 35.64 baht) More

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan can retain its decade-old blueprint focusing on efforts to beat deflation even if the central bank were to phase out its massive stimulus with an end to negative interest rates, said the government’s chief economist Tomoko Hayashi.Under pressure by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to take bolder steps to beat deflation, the Bank of Japan signed a joint statement with the government in 2013 and committed itself to achieve its 2% inflation target “at the earliest date possible.”The pledge has served as the backbone of former BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s radical monetary stimulus and justification for keeping Japan’s interest rates ultra-low.Some analysts say the statement has become out of sync as inflation has stayed above 2% for well over a year, prodding the BOJ to contemplate a near-term end to its negative rate policy.Hayashi countered the view, saying that any such shift in BOJ policy would not alter the importance of its 2% inflation target, and the need for the government and central bank to coordinate policies to avert a return to deflation.”The importance of this statement, which called for the need to end deflation and achieve sustainable growth, will not change,” Hayashi told Reuters in an interview on Monday.”The current framework, under which the BOJ guides monetary policy with the aim of achieving its 2% inflation target, is something very important for the government and the public.”Hayashi was involved in the drafting of the joint statement as a senior Cabinet Office official. As director-general of its Economic Research Bureau, she currently briefs Prime Minister Fumio Kishida regularly on economic developments.Revising the statement, a move considered by some in the government last year, could affect BOJ decisions by re-defining its role and that of the government, and policy priorities.Shortly after Kishida appointed Kazuo Ueda as BOJ governor last year, the two said they had no plan to amend the joint statement for the time being.When asked about the statement, Kishida told parliament on Tuesday the government and BOJ must “always communicate closely” about the roles they must play in revitalising the economy.”The government is taking steps to end deflation and achieve structural, stable wage rises accompanied by moderate inflation, so that a virtuous economic cycle is revived,” Kishida said. “I hope the BOJ takes the government’s economic policy into account in making monetary policy decisions.”Another factor that may affect the BOJ’s exit timing is how soon the government will officially declare an end to deflation.”To declare that Japan is permanently out of deflation, we need to ensure that Japan is no longer in a state of deflation, and that it won’t revert to deflation,” Hayashi said. “The latter is difficult to judge, so we’re looking at various data.”Kishida has made economic revitalisation his top priority and stressed the need to push up wages to help households weather rising living costs. Critics say declaring a permanent end to deflation would help him win political scores.”If this year’s wage growth exceeds that of last year, we’ll likely see a positive wage-inflation cycle kick off in Japan,” Hayashi said. “We’re now seeing a golden opportunity open up to put a permanent end to deflation.”Since becoming BOJ governor in April last year, Ueda has begun dismantling his predecessor’s stimulus starting with a tweak to a controversial bond yield control. His recent hawkish signs have heightened market expectations of an end to negative rates by April. More