March 4, 2024
United States:
Fed’s Powell to Double Down on ‘No Rush to Cut’ Message
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is expected to double down on his message that there’s no rush to cut interest rates, especially after fresh inflation data showed that price pressures persist.
Powell is headed to Capitol Hill, where he’ll deliver his semiannual monetary policy testimony to a House committee on Wednesday and a Senate panel on Thursday. The US central bank chief and nearly all of his colleagues have said in recent weeks that they can afford to be patient in deciding when to cut rates given underlying strength in the US economy.
Europe:
ECB’s Goldilocks Inflation Vision Tested by Data Drip Feed
The European Central Bank’s hope that euro-zone wages rise just enough to fuel economic expansion, without reigniting inflation, will be put to the test by a slow drip of data releases that will determine when interest rates can safely be lowered.
While new quarterly projections to be unveiled at this week’s policy meeting will reveal a slightly softer outlook for prices, the focus of officials is squarely on salaries, which are still advancing at more than double the 2% inflation target.
Asia:
China Expected to Target GDP Growth of Around 5% in 2024
China is expected to set its annual growth rate for 2024 at “around 5%” when the national legislature meets this week, a fairly ambitious target for a government grappling with severe economic challenges.
Almost all of the 27 economists surveyed by Bloomberg about the upcoming annual National People’s Congress session expect Beijing to announce a growth target similar to 2023’s, albeit one that will be harder to reach given a higher base of comparison. Economists polled in a separate, broader survey expect the economy to grow about 4.6% in 2024.
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