Central Bank Policy Trends

Regulators face struggle to balance demands for upping employees' salaries.

The Bank of Japan's yield curve control (YCC) is under fierce market attack, as investors test the bank's commitment to capping bond yields with inflation above the BOJ's target.

The European Central Bank will be more aggressive than previously thought in its tightening campaign, adding another 50 basis points to its deposit rate on Feb. 2, as it continues its battle against rampant inflation, a Reuters poll found.

As 2023 gets underway, so do the central bank meetings and the Bank of Canada will be the next after the BoJ to announce its first policy decision of the year. Meanwhile, investors will be nervously awaiting the first PMI readings of 2023 next week as they juggle to reach a consensus about the recessionary risks. In the United States, there will additionally be the advance GDP estimates for the final quarter of 2022, as well as PCE inflation data. The latest CPI numbers will be at the forefront too in Australia and New Zealand. 

Amid speculation that the US could be slipping into a recession, upcoming flash PMI data will be eagerly assessed to gauge the business climate in the opening month of the year. The surveys from S&P Global have been sending especially weak signals for output and demand growth, albeit with labour markets remaining relatively resilient, which has in turn led to a marked cooling of inflationary pressures. Putting all of the signals together will provide insights into the potential future path of monetary policy.

For the past year the euro area has been touted for a severe recession during 2023. Up to now, data have failed to follow suit as they enjoy a period of better-than-expected prints. This situation could reflect the extreme pessimism among professional forecasters going into 2023, but it is evidently unsettling the market and causing a wave of upward revisions in the EURUSD projections. Having said that, next week’s economic releases would be the first real test on the current shape of the euro area economies.

The central bank must maintain control of its balance sheet

This week’s data was broadly supportive of confidence, with the risks around inflation and therefore the policy outlook thought to have improved into the new year.

Retail sales edged lower by 0.1% month-on-month (m/m) in November, a better outturn than Statistics Canada’s advance estimate for a 0.5% drop. Adjusting for the impact of inflation, the volume of sales was down 0.4% on the month.

While a sharp increase in U.S. crude inventories for the second week in a row is giving the bulls pause, data showed that China's crude oil demand jumped nearly 1 million barrels per day in November, rising to a new high since February. The International Energy Agency (IEA) Administrator Fatih Birol said Thursday that the energy market may be tighter in 2023; in addition, investors believe that the Fed will slow the pace of interest rate hikes and other news to boost the economy and promote energy demand, helping to extend the rise in crude oil prices.