Japan's economy likely to slow in Q2

May 20, 2015 06:53 am UTC| Commentary

The acceleration in GDP growth last quarter was mostly due to a jump in inventories, and a range of indicators point to a slowdown in the second quarter.GDP expanded by 0.6% q/q (2.5% annualised) last quarter, faster than...

FOMC minutes to underscore uncertainty about the outlook, exit tools

May 20, 2015 06:26 am UTC| Commentary

The main focus of the minutes will be on the economic assessment and outlook. The Committee significantly downgraded their assessment of current conditions in the April 29 FOMC statement, noting that the pace of job gains...

Market Movers: May 20th, 2015

May 20, 2015 06:03 am UTC| Commentary

Todays main event is the publication of minutes from the FOMC-meeting on 28-29 April. In the statement from the meeting the Fed said that the slowdown in Q1 was partly transitory, so it will be interesting to see to what...

Poland's retail sales growth expected to be weaker

May 20, 2015 05:52 am UTC| Commentary

Polands retail sales growth likely to have decelerated to 1.8% in April from 3.0% in March but to have increased by 1.1% mom. Retail sales were mainly driven by sales of food products, pharmaceuticals, and clothing and...

Thailand's inflation expectations fall

May 20, 2015 05:49 am UTC| Commentary

As an inflation-targeting central bank, the BoT set a headline CPI inflation target of 2.5% +/- 1.5ppt from this year. Thai CPI inflation has averaged c.2.5% y/ysince 2000 and the +/-1.5ppt band is meant to address...

Updating SGD NEER index

May 20, 2015 05:32 am UTC| Commentary

The SGD NEER itself has held comfortably above the midpoint of the trading band since 24 April, on Barclayss estimates, amid a significant paring back in market expectations for further MAS easing following the 14 April...

Attractive roll-down on the THB curve

May 20, 2015 05:14 am UTC| Commentary

The recent rise in Thai baht (THB) swap rates - a spill-over effect of the global bond market sell-off and bear steepening of the curve - provides a good opportunity for roll-down trades. THB 5Y swap rates spiked c.30bps...