Phil Odonaghoe, Economist at Deutsche Bank, suggests that the light dataflow has left little to guide sentiment over the past 24 hours, leaving markets in something of a holding pattern ahead of a number of central bank meetings this week, including the Federal Reserve, and Bank of England (and starting with the BoJ today, which left the policy rate unchanged as expected).
Key Quotes
“US equities were mixed, and US treasury yields slipped a little through the session. European bourses closed stronger though Asian bourses had lost ground in midday trading Tuesday.
With little to look back on over the past 24 hours, we will take the opportunity to look ahead. It seems likely that the key highlight this week will be the Federal Reserve meeting, which concludes Wednesday. Our US economics team expect the Fed to remain on hold, but to nonetheless re-introduce their “balance of risks” language in the post-meeting statement, thereby leaving open the possibility of a rate hike as soon as the June 14-15 meeting. Overall, they expect the statement will strike a cautiously optimistic tone given the stabilisation in domestic and international equity markets (up about 9% from their intra-quarter low). On the domestic economic assessment, they think the language may look very similar to January. Always a highlight for market observers: the “dot plot”. Here, our US team think that the forecast may be reduced by just 25 basis points compared to the median expectation from the December 2015 meeting of four rate hikes this year.
The overall message in the RBA Board meeting minutes for March was in line with the message in the post-meeting statement. Specifically, the concluding sentence in the ‘considerations for monetary policy’ section: “Members noted that continued low inflation would provide scope to ease monetary policy further, should that be appropriate to lend support to demand”. As noted above, the Bank of Japan left the policy rate unchanged, noting that “Japan’s economy has continued its moderate recovery trend”.
In the day ahead, Q4 employment data is due in Europe, along with final CPI prints in France and Italy. The data flow picks up in the US, with retail sales for February, the NY Fed Empire survey (March), NAHB housing market index (March) and business inventories data for January due.”
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)