Topic
Monetary Policy
Everything Briefed has filed against Monetary Policy, most recent first.
51 stories
Monetary policy covers the decisions central banks make to manage inflation and economic growth, primarily through interest rate adjustments and balance sheet operations. In the UK, the Bank of England sets rates eight times per year; in the US, the Federal Reserve meets at a similar cadence.
Coverage40 shown
US inflation cools to 3.4%, core CPI up just 0.2%Core CPI rose 0.2% in July, the softest monthly print in months, pulling annual inflation down to 3.4%. That is still nearly double the Fed's target, but the direction of travel is what markets wan…Japan's producer prices stay hot as BOJ weighs its next moveWholesale inflation in Japan is holding stubbornly high, complicating the Bank of Japan's case for a slow, gradual path on rates. Producer prices feed through to consumer inflation with a lag, so p…The yen intervention rally is already half goneJapan and the US ran their first joint yen-buying operation since 1998 last week, hauling the currency from a 40-year low near 164 per dollar to about 155.20. It's now back to roughly 158.4, having…Gold has its best week since January on a jobs missUS nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, reversing a downwardly revised 20,000 gain in June, and spot gold jumped 2.3% to $4,336.11 an ounce on the release, hitting a seven-week high according t…Hungary's central bank makes the case for the euro, againMNB governor Mihaly Varga wants Hungary in the euro area as a competitive, well prepared economy, with the bank's own modelling pointing to 0.6 to 0.9 percentage points of extra annual GDP growth a…Kevin Warsh won't soften the Fed message, whatever the market wantsWarsh is holding to a deliberately spare communication style at the Fed despite pushback from investors who want clearer forward guidance on rate cuts. His bet, and it is a bet, is that ambiguity k…Japan wants growth to do what intervention couldn'tBetting on GDP growth to fix the yen is a longer, riskier play than currency intervention, and Tokyo knows it. The argument coming out of Japan's leadership is that sustained economic growth, not c…Tokyo and Washington confirm the intervention everyone already priced inCentral banks rarely admit to currency intervention while it's happening, so Japan and the US confirming a joint operation to prop up the yen is the unusual part, not the intervention itself. The y…US growth slowed and nobody's sure if that's good newsA weaker-than-expected second quarter GDP print lands at an awkward moment: soft enough to strengthen the case for Federal Reserve rate cuts, but not so soft that it looks like the hard landing bea…The Fed's split just became public, and Treasury yields noticedTwo Fed officials dissenting on a hold is unusual enough. What's rattling Treasury desks is the silence that followed. Apollo's chief economist Torsten Slok is calling it a 'yo-yo' bond market, wit…Bank of England holds at 3.75%, and that's the boring partNobody serious expected a cut today, so the hold itself is not the story. What matters is the vote split and the language in the minutes, because that's what moves the November meeting from a coin …Investors are losing patience with the Bank of JapanJapan's inflation has run hot enough for long enough that the BoJ's gradualist approach is starting to look like indecision rather than caution. Investors are now openly questioning whether Governo…PBOC's biggest liquidity push in five months exposes Beijing's nervesCentral banks inject cash at this scale when growth data is softer than headline GDP prints suggest, not when things are fine. This is the largest liquidity addition since February, pointing to wea…Yen crashes through 163, and the Bank of Japan is running out of excusesA four-decade low against the dollar means the yen has now erased more value than at any point since 1986, and Tokyo's verbal intervention playbook is visibly failing to hold the line. The move pas…Indonesia's rupiah has a rate hike to lean on, the Aussie doesn'tBank Indonesia's rate stance and stronger fiscal numbers are giving the rupiah a floor that most emerging market currencies lack right now, with analysts pointing to improved current account discip…Malaysia's central bank is running out of room to keep liquidity looseRate-hike bets are building in Malaysia as liquidity tightens, a reversal from the easing bias most emerging Southeast Asian central banks have held for the past year. Bank Negara Malaysia has kept…US inflation at 3.5% still isn't the Fed's numberFalling gasoline prices did the heavy lifting on this print, not underlying disinflation, and that distinction matters more than the headline drop. A 3.5% rate driven by energy is fragile precisely…New Zealand's PM is running against his own predecessor's playbookWarning against 'sugar rush economics' is a direct shot at Ardern-era stimulus spending, and it signals New Zealand is choosing fiscal restraint over growth juicing well ahead of most G7 peers stil…ECB's Rehn calls the energy shock stagflationary. That word choice is load-bearing.ECB Governing Council member Olli Rehn has explicitly described the recent energy shock as stagflationary, which is not a word central bankers use casually. Stagflation removes the standard policy …The yen at a four-decade low is a carry trade with a known endingThe yen has hit its weakest level against the dollar in roughly forty years, a direct consequence of the Bank of Japan's continued hesitation to raise rates meaningfully despite inflation running a…The PBOC withheld its rate on the first overnight operation. That silence is a policy signal.China's central bank chose not to set a rate on its debut overnight lending operation, and the ambiguity is deliberate. Withholding the rate on a new instrument's first use preserves optionality an…The RBA says it will be better prepared next time. Every central bank says that after a crisis.Reserve Bank of Australia assistant governor Christopher Kent's claim that the RBA would be better equipped to handle the next financial crisis follows the standard post-mortem arc: identify what w…US consumers are spending more and suffering more, simultaneouslyUS consumer spending accelerated in May even as inflation hit its highest reading in three years, a combination that looks resilient on the surface but masks a deteriorating real-income picture. Wh…Alan Greenspan, 1926-2026Alan Greenspan has died at 100. He ran the Federal Reserve for 18 years across five presidencies, gave us 'irrational exuberance' as a concept and near-zero rates as a habit, and spent his final de…India's bond rally has stalled. The RBI is the reason the short end is now vulnerable.India's government bond market has spent the last several months repricing the limits of RBI support. The 10-year yield spread over the policy repo rate reached a two-year high after the RBI's June…China's AI stocks are pricing in chip-control failure. One short seller disagreesZhipu, the HSTECH index's standout performer this year, has rallied approximately 1,100% and attracted precisely one short call, which is either a sign of extraordinary conviction in Chinese AI's d…Hong Kong's SFC is pressing ahead with the PwC-Evergrande payout despite a live court challengeThe SFC is distributing a HK$1 billion compensation pool funded by PwC Hong Kong for Evergrande minority shareholders, and it has refused to pause despite a judicial review filed by Evergrande's ow…Zhipu has rallied 1,100% and just got its first short. Both facts matter.Hedgeye's Felix Wang has put a HK$407 fair value on Zhipu as a short, running directly against the momentum that has made it the hottest name on the HSTECH Index this year, and his core argument is…Corporate market caps above $1 trillion warp risk perceptionThe cognitive inability to distinguish between millions, billions and trillions is distorting investment decisions as corporate valuations enter the multi-trillion range. Most people systematically…Indonesian rupiah nears 18,000 as central bank intervenesBank Indonesia deployed "smart intervention" after the currency hit record lows of 17,733 per dollar amid regional tensions.Dollar's 2.6% monthly rise leaves strategists waryThe Dollar Index climbed 2.6% month-to-date, its largest gain since July's 3.2% rise, as traders priced higher US rates and geopolitical safe-haven demand. USD/JPY hit 160.25, approaching levels th…Japan warns it can act on currency volatilityFinance Minister Satsuki Katayama reiterated Japan's readiness to intervene if there's excessive FX volatility or speculative moves, as USD/JPY trades near intervention-sensitive levels. Her commen…ECB's Makhlouf keeps June rate hike on table as inflation risks mountGabriel Makhlouf refused to rule out another ECB rate hike next month, signaling the central bank's 2% inflation target trumps growth concerns. The Irish central bank governor told markets the ECB …ECB's Guindos signals weaker growth must factor into June decisionThe ECB's vice president added his voice to calls for considering economic weakness alongside inflation risks in next month's rate decision.Carlyle's Thomas calls June BoJ hike as intervention zone beckonsJason Thomas at Carlyle expects the Bank of Japan to raise rates at its June meeting, joining a growing consensus that the yen's structural weakness is ending. The BoJ held at 0.75% in April but th…RBC BlueBay adds yen longs as USD/JPY approaches intervention zoneRBC BlueBay increased its yen positions as USD/JPY drifted back toward 160, viewing this level as "increasingly attractive" given rising intervention risk and June BoJ hike expectations. The asset …Morgan Stanley Japan CEO wants yen at 140Alberto Tamura told Bloomberg he's 'hoping that the yen strengthens to around 140' per dollar, but only if the Bank of Japan acts. Morgan Stanley's FX research shows USD/JPY trading above fair valu…Yardeni warns Fed risks losing control of rates to bond vigilantesEd Yardeni is telling the Fed to drop its easing bias or watch the bond market do the tightening for them. With the 2-year yield 25 basis points above the fed funds rate and 30-year bonds crossing …Yen slides toward 158 as intervention watch intensifiesThe yen has weakened 1% over the past week to near 158 per dollar, putting traders back on intervention alert after Japanese authorities spent tens of billions defending the currency above 160 last…Japan spends $35bn defending yen, market fights backJapanese authorities burned through over $35 billion in forex intervention starting April 30, triggering a 500-pip yen rally that reversed within days. The USD/JPY pair has since formed a triple bo…