GBP faces two profit-taking risks after three days of appreciation. GBP/USD bounced off a trendline support at 1.26 last Friday and met trendline resistances around 1.2735-40 on Tuesday. First, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget announcement will likely fall short of expectations. The expected personal tax cuts will unlikely be large enough to satisfy the Tory MPs’ hopes for a boost with voters or to the UK economy ahead of the next general elections due by January 2025. Given the need to finance the tax cuts with fiscal spending, the Office for Budget Responsibility will likely lower its 2024 GDP growth forecast from the 0.7% projected in November. The Bank of England correctly anticipated the technical recession but is not rushing to lower rates. For the BOE meeting on March 21, let’s see if BOE Governor Andrew Bailey remains comfortable with interest rate futures projecting the first cut in June or August. Bailey told the Treasury Select Committee that inflation on February 20, the BOE did not need inflation to hit the 2% target to cut rates. With CPI inflation falling at 3.9-4% for three months into January, let’s see if the BOE will stick by its earlier projection for CPI inflation to hit 2% in spring before rising again in the rest of 2024.
Second, Fed Chair Jerome Powell will confront and resist pressures from US lawmakers to cut interest rates at his semi-annual testimony on monetary policy before the House Financial Services Committee today and before the Senate Banking Committee tomorrow. At the FOMC meeting on January 31, Powell said a rate cut was not the base scenario at the March 20 meeting. Despite a letter from Senator Elizabeth and three Democratic lawmakers urging immediate action to relieve homeowners from high mortgage rates, Powell and Fed officials have been advocating patience on the resilience of the US economy and labour market. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, a voting FOMC member, favours delivering the first Fed cut in 3Q24, later than the futures’ projection for a June cut. The data-dependent market sees today’s ADP employment data increasing to 150k (consensus) in February from 107k in January, and Friday’s nonfarm payrolls holding at/above the 200k level. Next week, consensus expects CPI inflation to increase again to 0.4% MoM in February after rising to 0.3% in January from 0.2% in the previous month. Not surprisingly, DXY bounced off the floor of its two-week range between 103.6 and 104.2.
Quote of the day
"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
Michelangelo (born 6 March 1475)
6 March in history
Ghana becomes the first African country to gain independence from colonial rule in 1957.
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