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Highlights
The Board typically waits for quarterly inflation data before acting, and this would be only the second time it has moved without the quarterly print already in hand since 2003.
Acting now, shows how far the Bank’s reaction function has shifted, from a Board willing to wait and assess the impact of its three earlier hikes this year to one no longer prepared to let that assessment delay a fourth.
We continue to expect another 50 basis points in total on the cash rate; a hike to 4.60% on September 29 and a further move to 4.85% on November 2-3, and no further moves this year. The Bank’s last meeting this year is December 7-8 before it breaks until February 8-9.
Sydney Morning Herald 9/29/26
Australian borrowers could face a run of rate hikes after RBA governor Michele Bullock warned an economic downturn may be needed if politicians and businesses failed to shake the nation’s productivity malaise.
The bank lifted rates to a 15-year high of 4.6 per cent on Tuesday and its monetary policy board struck a hawkish tone flagging more increases could be on the way if inflation figures to be released on Wednesday remained “unacceptably high”. While split on previous decisions, the board was unanimous in backing a fourth rate rise this year.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is now more likely than not to raise the cash rate to 4.60% at its September 28-29 meeting on inflation data that has run hotter than the Bank’s own forecast on every measure since it last met.
We also now see real risk of a second hike in November, a shift from our prior call that a fourth hike, if it came at all, was more likely in November than September.
Bloomberg 9/29/26
Australia’s central bank resumed raising
interest rates on Tuesday, judging it couldn’t wait any longer
to respond to rising energy costs and resilient domestic demand
that threaten to intensify inflationary pressures.
The Reserve Bank’s board lifted the cash rate to 4.6% from
4.35%, taking rates to the highest level in
about 15 years. The nine-member policy committee voted
unanimously to deliver its fourth hike this year, saying firms
are experiencing cost pressures and either increasing prices or
looking to do so.
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) will likely hold its policy rate at 0% through 2027 rather than use the current favorable backdrop to rebuild policy space with a premature hike.
SNB officials could choose to rephrase the sentence the policy statement traditionally uses to describe the franc as overvalued, and convey the central bank is ready to intervene to weaken it to secure price stability.
A step to de-emphasize its readiness to intervene in the FX market would signal the Governing Board deems the widening policy differential with the ECB is becoming a policy-relevant factor for the SNB, which would pave the way for a hike during the projection horizon.
Bloomberg 9/24/26
The Swiss franc dipped to the lows of the
day versus the euro after the SNB kept its policy rate at 0% as
expected and changed its wording on FX intervention:
*SNB: WILLINGNESS TO INTERVENE IN FX MARKETS IF NEEDED
*SNB DROPS ‘INCREASED WILLINGNESS’ WORDING FROM FX
STATEMENT
We also need more evidence to be convinced of a 2026 hike, though that evidence gap is narrowing, and the run of testimony, yield moves, and ECB action this week makes the case for patience harder to sustain than it was even a month ago.
Those committee members who have been agitating for an immediate rate hike will dissent from the majority vote again, setting up a real battle – if there is still one to be had – for the November 5 forecast round meeting, but more on all that later.
We expect the same 6-3 split from the July 30 meeting to repeat September 17, with Bailey, Sarah Breeden, Swati Dhingra, Clare Lombardelli, Dave Ramsden, and Alan Taylor voting to hold, and Megan Greene, Catherine Mann, and Huw Pill dissenting again in favor of an immediate hike.
Bloomberg 9/17/26
The Bank of England held interest rates at
3.75% while warning that a hike may be needed if inflationary
pressures intensify as a result of conflict in the Middle East.
Six rate-setters chose to leave rates unchanged, including
Governor Andrew Bailey, as the Monetary Policy Committee split
along the same lines as the last meeting in July.
In prepared remarks, Bailey said the global energy shock
has so far had a limited effect on prices and wages in the UK.
“But the longer this volatility persists, the bigger the impact
it will have on inflation, and the more likely it is we will
need to raise Bank rate,” the governor added.
We expect the Fed’s reaction function will shift considerably more hawkish compared to June. We project the median 2026 dot will be for two rate hikes, with the overall distribution moving higher. This change in policy is fundamentally about providing a minimally credible policy outlook given the economic outlook and persistently high inflation. Essentially it is a correction for the June SEP which implied a considerably more dovish reaction function given participants raised their economic but not policy outlooks.
Financial Review 9/16/26
Washington | The Federal Reserve raised interest rates and flagged further increases in borrowing costs in coming months, with new US central bank chief Kevin Warsh joining a unanimous decision that effectively acknowledges the Trump administration’s inability so far to control inflation.
New policy projections showed 16 of 18 policymakers anticipate at least one more quarter-percentage-point hike by the end of this year, with only two of them seeing rates remaining stable from here. Warsh apparently again did not submit a rate projection.
Another Step Toward Being Backed Into a Hike
While the outcome of the September FOMC meeting still hinges on Friday’s CPI number, today’s PPI number may help Fed Chair Kevin Warsh lead a reluctant FOMC to hike rates into a fresh oil shock with Fed Governor Chris Waller, ironically, providing the key guidance that helps secure a hike.
Wall Street Journal — WASHINGTON 9/16/26
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates Wednesday for the first time in three years, a sharp reversal that began taking back cuts it made last year and implicitly undercut the White House’s insistence that inflation isn’t a concern.
The increase, approved unanimously, will raise the benchmark federal-funds rate range by a quarter point to between 3.75% and 4%. The vast majority of officials penciled in one more hike this year in interest-rate projections released after their meeting.
The collapse of US-Canada trade talks late last week will dominate Bank of Canada (BOC) concerns about growth risk, reinforcing that rates are likely to stay at 2.25% through year end, though the Bank will likely now ramp up hawkish talk to combat renewed inflation risk as a weaker Canadian dollar and Ottawa’s own retaliatory tariffs add a new upside risk to price stability.
Bloomberg Economics 9/2/26
The Bank of Canada’s rate hold Wednesday was widely expected, but the hawkish tone of the statement reflecting a new assessment of risks amid the trade war with the US. The central bank is comfortable remaining accommodative for now, with the standoff creating a new tariff shock that could add to labor-market volatility.
- The Governing Council held the overnight rate target at 2.25% for a seventh straight meeting.
- The statement noted that “with the Middle East conflict still ongoing and little progress reopening the Strait of Hormuz, upside risks to the Bank’s inflation forecast have increased.” That’s a material change from the July statement, with the central bank now explicitly questioning when energy prices will normalize.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will hold rates at 4.35% this month, and its next move remains more likely a cut than a hike, the same call we made two months ago, when the prevailing debate was still whether the RBA would need to hike again before year-end.
We do not think the Bank will need to hike again this year. That doesn’t mean we expect a cut to be imminent. The Bank may be able to hold for some months yet, but it does mean that whenever it moves off 4.35%, that move is most likely down.
Dow Jones – SYDNEY 8/11/26
The Reserve Bank of Australia left interest rates unchanged on Tuesday but continued to warn that inflation remains too high, especially against the backdrop of war in the Middle East.
The RBA left the official cash rate on hold at 4.35%, in line with economists’ expectations. It raised the OCR three times earlier this year, with the impact of those decisions still flowing through to the economy.
The RBA’s nine-member policy-setting board voted unanimously to keep interest rates on hold.
“The board remains focused on ensuring that high inflation does not become embedded,” the board said in a statement.
As of today, we identify three main presidential candidates. These are Bundesbank president Joachim Nagel, former president of the Netherlands Bank Klaas Knot, and former Bank of Spain governor and current chair of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Pablo Hernandez de Cos.
Nagel is a member of the center-left SPD party and was nominated to his current role by the previous SPD-led German coalition. Merz himself leads a grand coalition with the SPD, and his vice-chancellor and minister of finance, Lars Klingbeil, is a leading member of that party.
Bloomberg 8/6/26
Germany’s government is weighing whether to
nominate Joachim Nagel for the European Central Bank presidency,
according to people familiar with the matter.
Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil supports Nagel, who hails
from the same Social Democrat stable as he does, the people
said, adding that Conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz has yet
to express a view. Given that the Bundesbank president is the
country’s leading ECB contender, a failure to endorse him may
essentially rule out a German bid.
Bloomberg 8/6/26
The Netherlands endorsed Klaas Knot to lead
the European Central Bank, as the race to succeed Christine
Lagarde nears a decisive phase.
The former Dutch central-bank governor has now received
official backing from his government, according to a Finance
Ministry spokesperson. He’d also be highly qualified for other
top positions opening up in the months ahead, the spokesperson
said, without specifying which positions.
Knot is seen as a frontrunner for the ECB post, along with
Spain’s Pablo Hernandez de Cos, who’s already won the support of
his government.