Global Economy Week Ahead: U.K. Inflation; Fed, ECB and Bank of Mexico Rate Decisions
10 December 2017 - 8:29PM
Dow Jones News
By WSJ Staff
This week, central banks around the world will make their final
monetary policy decisions of 2017, while a round of economic
readings could help shape their outlooks going into 2018.
TUESDAY: The Federal Reserve begins its two-day policy meeting.
Officials have signaled they are likely to vote to raise their
benchmark short-term interest rate by a quarter percentage point at
the meeting. Fed officials have been cheery about the U.S. economy
and job creation that could push up inflation over time, in turn
bolstering the case for further rate rises in 2018.
The U.K. statistics office publishes figures on consumer
inflation in November. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal
expect annual price growth to come in at 3%, unchanged from
October's reading, but still significantly above the Bank of
England's 2% target. The BOE last month raised its benchmark
interest rate to 0.5%, from an all-time low of 0.25%, in an attempt
to get inflation under control.
WEDNESDAY: The U.S. Labor Department releases inflation numbers
for November, the same day the Fed's policy meeting wraps up. The
consumer-price index's soft trend persisted in October, but
so-called core prices that exclude the volatile food and energy
categories rose 1.8% from a year earlier, the strongest annual gain
since April.
THURSDAY: IHS Markit's composite purchasing managers index is
expected to point to a strong end to the year for the eurozone. The
consensus forecast is for a slight drop in the measure to 57.3 in
December, from 57.5 in November, but that would still make the
fourth quarter one of the strongest three-month periods since the
recovery began in mid-2013. A few hours later, the European Central
Bank is expected to leave its policies unchanged, but its
economists are expected to raise their growth forecasts once again,
a sign that 2018 may see the end of the ECB's bond-buying program
launched in early 2015.
The Bank of England also releases a policy statement Thursday.
When raising rates last month, the central bank indicated further
tightening would be gradual and limited, indicating just two more
quarter-point increases by the end of 2020.
The Bank of Mexico releases a policy statement, with Gov.
Alejandro Díaz de León newly at the helm. Mexico's consumer-price
inflation hit a 16-year high at 6.66% in August, though price
increases slowed in September and early October. Most analysts
expect the bank's next move to be a rate cut around August next
year. Mr. Díaz de León recently said all options are on the table,
but uncertainty makes giving interest-rate guidance risky.
FRIDAY: The Bank of Russia releases a policy statement, after
cutting its key interest rate by 0.25 percentage point at its last
meeting in late October. The Russian economy is gradually
recovering from a recession brought on by a one-two punch of
Western sanctions and declining global prices for oil, the
country's primary export.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 10, 2017 15:14 ET (20:14 GMT)
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