Cracks Start to Emerge in Global Central Bank Synchronicity

  • New Zealand may break from pack with an interest-rate hike
  • US-Europe economic trajectories diverge; policy paths may too

The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building in Washington, DC.

Photographer: Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg
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The four-year synchronization among developed-world central banks might be about to weaken as domestic drivers take over from global trends in determining price outlooks.

A pioneer of inflation targeting in the early 1990s, New Zealand has a knack of setting trends in monetary policy. And it may do so again by snapping the policy uniformity, with traders pricing the possibility of an interest-rate hike that ANZ Bank economists say could come as soon as Feb. 28.