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A look at the day ahead in European and global markets

By Kevin Buckland, Asia Markets Correspondent

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The world’s biggest central banks all confirmed their policy stances from one venue on Wednesday, in the finale of the ECB’s Sintra forum. Today we see how much the inflation data backs those views up.

Germany, Spain and Denmark all report June CPI figures, and the U.S. follows with the final reading of the core PCE price index for the first quarter. A little further afield, on Friday, Tokyo reports consumer price data – a leading indicator for Japan’s nationwide figures due later.

Reflection of the sign of the European central Bank (ECB) is seen ahead of the news conference on the outcome of the Governing Council meeting, at the ECB headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

ECB head Christine Lagarde cemented expectations for a July hike, and Fed chair Jay Powell perhaps upped his hawkish credentials by keeping the possibility of consecutive rate increases on the table. Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey suggested the market is underestimating how long tight policy will need to stay in place.

All the while, Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda, seated appropriately at the far end of the panel, stuck with his outlying view that inflation in his part of the world needs a bit more boosting, rather than taming.

The upshot was for the dollar to keep ticking merrily higher, venturing as far as 144.62 yen – and ever closer to the 145 line that many market players and analysts see as raising the risk of intervention.

Graphics are produced by Reuters.

Japanese officials were uncharacteristically quiet on the yen today, but the People’s Bank of China set the record straight in dramatic fashion.

Thursday’s much stronger-than-expected yuan fixing was dubbed by Citi analysts as “the most forceful sign yet of official discomfort at the pace of yuan depreciation”.

China had left traders perplexed on Wednesday with an official rate in line with market projections, an about-face after two days of resolutely firmer fixings that China watchers had taken as a signal that yuan weakness would no longer be tolerated.

Circling back to Europe, Sweden’s Riksbank sets policy today. The consensus among analysts is for a quarter-point hike, but markets haven’t ruled out a half-point move, particularly considering the Norges Bank’s hawkish surprise earlier this month.

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