Daily update
Daily update
- ECB President Lagarde is set to speak again. It is very unlikely that the last 24 hours have changed the world view of the ECB president. The tone of yesterday’s remarks signaled the direction of travel for Euro area rates was clear, though there was an attempt to insert some ambiguity about the pace of easing.
- The Federal Reserve offers its Beige Book of economic anecdote. Economists are a little torn over this. On the one hand, when structural change is happening, economic anecdotes can help identify trends missed by outdated conventional data. On the other hand, political polarization may have tainted even this economic survey.
- The IMF tweaked its global growth forecast a little lower and warned that trade taxes would produce negative economic consequences. This would only matter to markets if investors thought the IMF had insights denied to other economists. No one thinks that.
- The Bank of Canada is expected to cut rates as it tries to catch up to the decline in inflation (Canadian consumer price inflation has fallen 160bps since December 2023, but rates have fallen only 75bps to date). Euro area consumer confidence and US existing home sales data are due.
