It is fitting that just a few hours until the Fed’s second rate hike in two quarters, and one day after Goldman downgraded global stocks to Neutral for the next 3 months, not to mention with the results of the anticipated Dutch election due shortly, that global stocks as well as S&P futures are higher, while crude oil has finally managed to stage a rebound as the Dollar DXY index is fractionally in the red.
In addition to the Fed, a barrage of monetary policy decisions at the BOE, the BOJ, the SNB and Bank of Indonesia within the next 36 hours were further reasons for investors’ cautious stance.
East Coast traders return to their desks following a rather disapponting nor’easter, where they will be prompted bombarded by data over the next 2 days. Here is a quick summary of main events over the next 36 hours courtesy of Bloomberg:
The Fed’s decision will be announced at 2 p.m. in Washington, followed by Chair Janet Yellen’s news conference a half hour later. Investors are focused on any hints of a change in the number of increases the central bank foresees this year. Wednesday’s vote in the Netherlands will deliver a reading on the state of populism in Europe as races in France and Germany heat up. The Bank of Japan is set to keep its rates and yield-curve policy unchanged in its policy decision on Thursday. The Bank of England, Swiss National Bank and Bank Indonesia are also expected to stand pat with policy decisions. U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson travels to Japan, South Korea and China in his first visit to the region since taking office. U. S. President Donald Trump’s first budget outline for fiscal 2018 is expected on Thursday. He’s said he’ll seek a $54 billion boost in defense spending, paid for by an equal amount of cuts to non-defense agencies.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Mar 15, 2017.
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