Archive

July 08, 2025
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Inconsistently Dovish Pricing

  • Dovish market fears from April have unwound for the Fed, yet deepened for the BoE, despite broadly resilient data and cautious guidance from policymakers reluctant to cut.
  • Equity prices have relied on this resilience to recover, yet expectations for extended rate-cutting cycles imply it breaks. Payrolls only forced half of the gap to close.
  • We expect ongoing resilience to keep rolling market pricing for rate cuts later, with the unnecessary easing ultimately never being delivered by the BoE, Fed, or ECB.

By Philip Rush

July 02, 2025
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ECB Still Squeezed By Unemployment

  • EA unemployment’s rise to 6.3% matched the ECB forecast underlying recent hawkish guidance and narrowly relied on Italy, which offset a broad tightening elsewhere.
  • Unemployment is still broadly lower than a year ago and pre-pandemic. That will not help a disinflationary move along the Phillips Curve, let alone shift it lower.
  • Without a disinflationary surprise, the ECB should not be shocked into a rate cut as it describes the prevailing setting as well-positioned. We still see no more ECB cuts.

By Philip Rush

June 23, 2025
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Growth Broadly Back In The Black

  • PMI recoveries extended in June, taking averages above 50 as manufacturing is its strongest since Sep-22, and services almost align with its averages of recent years.
  • The UK survey balances suffered from bad vibes, so they are the primary beneficiary of sentiment improving. Their recovery can extend further as vibes improve.
  • Broad expansion helps labour demand to keep pace with supply, denying doves proof of a disinflationary demand shock. Without that, cuts roll later and may not resume.

By Philip Rush

June 12, 2025
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UK: Retreating To Trend Again

  • Residual seasonality shocked the consensus again, this time on the downside, as the spurious surge is replaced with stagnation for the rest of the year in our view.
  • The 0.3% m-o-m decline dragged GDP back toward its trend, wiping out the highly supportive statistical carryover effect for Q2, which we now forecast at 0.1% q-o-q.
  • BoE forecasts are on track, allowing the MPC’s bias to slow easing to materialise with a pause. We expect cuts to keep being rolled later, with no more delivered in this cycle.

By Philip Rush

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