Key events in the week ahead - Rabobank

The Rabobank Research Team offers a brief preview of the key events to watch out for in the week ahead.

Fed: If they cut 25bp and appear calm, markets might still be disappointed; and if they cut 50bp markets could actually be spooked. As such, perhaps 25bp and language showing that despite the data the Fed profess to look at being just fine, lots more cuts are possible will prove the right recipe.

BOJ: Yes, they have been “stealth tightening” by not monetizing quite as many JGBs, but can they reverse and plunge towards de facto MMT, despite protestations that this isn’t what they are doing? Yes, they can - because everyone else is about to do the same, and Japan runs a trade surplus so can get away with it.

Then post Fed it’s the BOE, under new management at the national level, where preparations for Hard Brexit are accelerating rapidly. Indeed, for BoJo, what is his real decision: Hard Brexit, or the appearance of Hard Brexit in order to precipitate a softer Brexit? Put that in your pie chart and smoke it, BOE economists: rates to rise, or fall sharply as a result?

The next round of US-China trade talks in Shanghai, where USTR Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin will put forward the view “we’d like to go back to where we were last May, where we did not have an agreement but we seemed to be about 90% of the way there,” according to White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow.