سوستيه جنرال
The Fed’s two-day meeting starts today but markets are finding it pretty easy to contain their
excitement. A dovish statement and no policy moves are universally expected. Today we get
consumer confidence, Case-Shiller house price and Richmond Fed manufacturing data, which
won’t add much to the debate, while yesterday’s dip in the services PMI to 57.4 from 59.2
supports the notion that the US economy is growing, but not as fast as it was or as some would
like it to.
The US is the only market where 2-year rates are higher now than they were six months ago
(14bp higher) and that in turn is reflected in the dollar having gone up against all the rest of
G10FX. But if we look at the last three months, US rates are up only 6bp, and we’ve had bigger
rises in NOK, GBP and CAD. At the risk of stating the obvious, the dollar, up between 8% *vs
CHF) and 24% (vs SEK) over the last year, has been re-priced on monetary policy divergence
and won’t make further headway until that trend resumes. In the meantime, the FX market is
once again gravitating towards yield – and the four currencies with the highest rates in G10 are
indeed the ones which have done best this week. It sounds like a recipe for lower volatility and
for money to leach towards emerging markets (again) until the US rate outlook changes again.
Overnight data saw a sharp fall in retail sales in Japan (-9.7% y/y, distorted by last year’s
pre-consumption tax jump, but still awful). Strong Apple earnings, ongoing talk of QE in China,
and strong house price gains in Sydney made headlines too. Today, other than the US data we
have UK GDP, expected to slow to 0.5% q/q and 2.6% y/y as a result of weaker construction.
UK growth expectations are now heading slowly lower. Sterling is unlikely to react much unless
the data are softer than expected, though we are in the ‘sell zone’ for GBP/USD now.
The Japanese data failed to prevent a strong day for the Nikkei, and didn’t move USD/JPY,
any more than yesterday’s downgrade by Fitch did. CFTC data suggest short yen positions are
being cut back aggressively but USD/JPY risk-reversals are still heavily skewed to the upside
and this probably needs to correct before we can put strategic long USD/JPY positions back on.
Like many trades, this one, too, waits on the Fed..,..