The Long Wait for Rate Cuts May Be Just Beginning
Obsessing over small misses in monthly data may obscure a broader point: Central banking’s golden era might have passed.
End of an era.
Photographer: Justin Chin/BloombergLooking for those interest-rate cuts markets once breathlessly anticipated is beginning to feel like sorting through cardboard boxes after moving house. What you seek is in there somewhere. Just one more container ought to do it.
Reductions that had been penciled for mid year — in some market wagers, earlier than that — have been regularly pushed back. It’s fair to wonder whether they will instead be a feature of 2025. New Zealand contemplated a further hike last week; the country was once expected to be among the first to offer relief and and should, by some reckoning, have done so by now given its languishing economy. South Korea, one of the first to move against inflation, will have to wait. Resilient price gains in India have likely postponed a decision.