Banxico today released the minutes of the March 26 meeting. The central bank decided to keep the reference rate unchanged at 3.00% in a unanimous vote. The board believes that the normalization of monetary policy in the US will be gradual.
All board members believe that economic activity in Mexico has been weak in 2015. The outlook for inflation remains favorable and the FX pass-through has been in line with expectations. The possibility of a pre-emptive hike was on the table again, but garnered less support than at the previous meeting.
"We confirm our view that Banxico will wait for the US Fed, but not beyond December. Our expectation is that the Fed will likely hike at the September FOMC meeting . If this is the case, we would expect Banxico to hike at its October meeting. However, if the Fed continues to delay, we believe that Banxico will start a hiking cycle in December as inflation will likely start to accelerate after that point if growth improves during the year.
We believe that the board will take the opportunity to keep inflation close to target by adjusting monetary policy as a result of domestic factors, hiking by year-end regardless of the timing of any Fed action . Finally, we think that an extreme episode of market volatility could pave the way for pre-emptive action. At this point, we believe all options are open." said Barclays in a report on Thursday
