Recent FOMC meeting minutes released yesterday show members supporting a tapering of the Fed’s recent rate hikes, pushing up stock markets and the greenback to sell off.
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- Federal Reserve meeting minutes showed support amongst most of the committee members for beginning to taper the current policy of rate hikes soon. However, most members are unclear about what the peak rate to be reached during 2023 will need to be, with analysts currently forecasting a consensus 5%. The minutes did reveal a consensus that the rate was approaching a “sufficiently restrictive” level. The release of the minutes boosted stock markets and triggered a small selloff in the US Dollar.
- In the Forex market, the US Dollar has clearly been the weakest major currency, with the British Pound and the New Zealand Dollar looking particularly strong. The GBP/USD currency pair and the NZD/USD currency pair have reached new 3-month high prices.
- Flash Services & Manufacturing PMI data released yesterday in Germany, France, and the UK came in mostly a little higher than had been expected.
- It is a public holiday today in the USA (Thanksgiving) and local markets will be closed.
- Daily new global coronavirus cases remained steady last week, maintaining a downwards trend which began last July.
- It is estimated that 68.4% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination.
- Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 644.5 million with an average case fatality rate of 1.03%.
- The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be significantly increasing only in China, Japan, the Solomon Islands, and Venezuela.
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