What the Fed does next year matters more than today’s cut [Video]

Canada joined the global political gloom. The sudden resignation of the finance minister on Monday started raising questions about Trudeau’s leadership as politicians there try to find ways to deal with economic slowdown topped by Trump’s tariff threats. A bit lower on the map, Brazil intervened to stop the bleeding of the real after the currency tanked more than 20% against the greenback to an all-time-low this year. Ballooning debt and deficit are taking a toll on the country’s finances. In France, the National Assembly just adopted a stopgap budget bill to avoid a government shutdown from January, while Germany announced an early election in February next year, on Monday.

In the US, investors were also worried but for a different reason: the retail sales, there, has again been higher than expected by analysts, again pointed at resilient consumer spending and again highlighted the needlessness of another rate cut from the Federal Reserve (Fed) today.
The Fed will announce a 25bp cut no matter what, but the accompanying statement and the dot plot will be more important as investors try to understand whether the Fed sees the mismatch between the data and expectations, and their policy.

In the UK, sterling is softer despite strong jobs and in-line inflation data, on worries that the UK’s economy could slow down before it improves – of the Bank of England (BoE) doesn’t give the necessary support.