Post date: 12/09/2022
The ECB massive 75bp hike, followed up by hawkish comments from the usual “sources”, sent the common currency soaring against most of its global peers, dragging along all other European currencies, while the Japanese yen ended up again at the bottom of the rankings, dragged down by the Bank of Japan insistence on remaining the last dovish holdout among the G10.
It wasn’t just the ECB, rates went up aggressively across the world last week. US Treasury yields broke out to fresh cycle highs, but this time the move failed to support the US dollar. As this is written, European currencies are rallying further, possibly buoyed by Ukrainian military successes against Russian forces that are raising hopes of a resolution to the war there.
The key event for this week will certainly be the US inflation report for August, out on Tuesday. The headline number is almost certain to show another pullback, on the back of easing energy prices. The key however will be the more sticky core number. Regardless of the outcome, the hard hawkish pivot from the Fed means that another jumbo 75bp hike is very likely the week after this one. The Bank of England meeting scheduled for this week has been moved to the next one due to the passing of the Queen of England, so there will be little scheduled news outside inflation to move markets.
GBP
The passing of Her Majesty dominated the headlines last week in the UK, though understandably the impact on markets was muted. Sterling joined in the general European rally against the US dollar, though it did not quite keep pace with the euro. This week we will pay close attention to the labor market report out on Tuesday. We expect another strong showing across the board, including job creation, claimant count and wages, which should support our contention that a strong consumer buoyed by full employment and pandemic savings is likely to be the main pillar of the UK economy in the coming months.
EUR
The ECB delivered the massive 75bp hike we had penciled in. President Lagarde´s press conference was muddled, as usual, but a drumbeat of “ECB sources” afterwards reaffirmed the hawkish pivot and sent both rates and the euro soaring higher. Another 75 bp rate is on the cards for October, and we still think that at around 2.5% the priced-in terminal level for ECB rates is way too low. This week’s industrial production numbers are for July and hence too lagging to have much market impact, so the US CPI report on Tuesday should be the key for the euro as well.
USD
Second tier US data were consistent with our view that the economy retains momentum. The non-manufacturing ISM number surprised to the upside, confirming the story being told by the employment data. However, the increase in US rates lagged that seen elsewhere, and the dollar suffered as a consequence. All eyes are now in the inflation data out on Tuesday. The key focus will be on the core data, which strips out volatile food and energy components. The annualised change in this indicator has been on a gentle downward trend for the past few months, while remaining unacceptably high for the Federal Reserve. A reversal here would be very unwelcome news for the central bank and would necessitate further repricing of the expected terminal value for overnight rates in the US, currently hovering around 4%.
