Thursday 23rd November 2017

Janet Yellen’s cautious tone around the dangers of falling inflation sent the US dollar and treasury yields downwards. This morning’s FOMC minutes did nothing to change the direction. In Britain the weaker dollar softened the impact of Philip Hammond’s budget, that promised little and was accompanied by downward revisions on growth forecasts. Yet, whilst the UK and US might be concerned about the real state of the economy, ECB’s Benoit Coeure has been talking up the need for a faster wind-down of QE and a more rapid timetable for rate rises. All in all, uncertainty abounds.