ECB follows Fed
The ECB followed in the footsteps of the FOMC last night by hiking 25bps earlier today. The ECB commented that they are not yet close to pausing interest rate hikes and are closely following inflation and pressures on the financial system. The gold price continued to rally during the day, with the yellow metal testing $2,070. The impact of tightening monetary policies and global recession fears backdrop have seen other commodities like Oil drop further and could continue to pressure prices in the coming weeks.
Rand Update
Locally the rand is still finding it tough to show any signs of a recovery back to R18.00 and below. We have seen most emerging market currencies trading sideways for most of the day, except Brazil, which is under pressure after leaving interest rates unchanged overnight. Tomorrow’s Non-Farm Payrolls print will be closely watched as always, where unemployment is expected to rise to 3.6%. Job numbers have been mixed this week, with ADP employment numbers surprising to the upside while JOLTs and Weekly Jobless claims printed lower.
#Inflation #InterestRate #EmergingMarkets
