BoE and Fed Minutes to Show Patience

The BoE Will Hold Rates as the Fed Will Publish the Notes from Last Meeting.

Two of the beacons of growth in the current economic slowdown will share the spotlight on Thursday as the Bank of England announces its monetary policy statement and the Federal Reserve publishes the minutes from its September meeting. The growth of the economies of the U.K. and the U.S. are losing momentum as global uncertainty makes it harder to gain traction. Once optimistic comments from central bankers on the topic of rate hikes now seem a bit unrealistic as market forecasters start to push them well into 2016 for both central banks.

The Bank of England will release its official bank rate statement and the minutes from the monetary policy committee on Thursday, October 8 at 7:00 am EDT. There are no changes expected to the U.K. benchmark rate (0.50 percent) and the vote count from members is expected to remain unchanged at 1-0-8.

The U.S. Federal Reserve did not launch its much-awaited rate hike in September, and the release of the notes from that meeting will give further insight beyond the statement. Chair Janet Yellen has not managed to regain the confidence of the market as her comments and those of fellow voting members seem to contradict the actual votes cast. With the end of 2015, two FOMC meetings away a rate hike does not seem feasible with only one vote in favour. The minutes of the September FOMC minutes will be published at 2:00 pm EDT.

Bank of England to Hold as UK Economy Slows Down

The Bank of England was optimistic about the UK economy at this time last year, but its head Economist Andrew Haldane started to see the economic clouds signalling the coming storm. At one point, the U.K. economy was enjoying a healthy growth spurt that put it well ahead of even the U.S. and the first developed economy that would raise rates. The commodity rout and overall global growth forecast downgrade has pushed that back into next year. The BOE will publish its rate statement and in an effort to increase transparency it will also publish the minutes from the monetary policy committee meeting.

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FOMC Minutes to Reveal Little as NFP Shifted Paradigm

The disappointing U.S. jobs report validates the decision by the Federal Reserve to hold rates unchanged, but the notes from the meeting will be analyzed to see how did only one member dissent (Lacker) while outside of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement there were lots of hawkish support for a rate hike before 2015, yet no votes to think that scenario was possible. The Fed can learn a big lesson from the BOE. Releasing the minutes at the same time as the rate statement increases transparency and gives the market one less day of volatility on a subject that in today’s market is stale a day after, let alone two weeks.

The problem with the Fed giving so much weight to the employment component was that it cannot keep rising forever. There is a point where gains will be marginal and as seen today some setbacks. The Fed was right to base most of rate rise rhetoric on employment, but it might have missed a window to hike while still having the support of strong jobs data. Overall the Fed does not want to lose more credibility and it has chosen to err on the side of patience than to backtrack on a commitment if economic conditions deteriorate.

U.K. and U.S. events to watch tomorrow:

Thursday, October 8

7:00 am GBP MPC Official Bank Rate Votes
7:00 am GBP Official Bank Rate
8:30 am USD Unemployment Claims
2:00 pm USD FOMC Meeting Minutes

*All times EDT