- Rate-setters could seek safety in numbers
- But economists think domestic data will determine their next moves
Central bankers are still in data-dependent mode. The US Federal Reserve is looking for “greater confidence” on inflation, while the Bank of England’s (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee has pledged to “monitor closely indications of persistent inflationary pressures and resilience in the economy as a whole”. Just this week, the European Central Bank (ECB) said it would “continue to follow a data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach” to determining the path of interest rates.
But more cynical observers would argue that this focus on month-to-month figures is overblown: given that rate cuts are coming sooner or later, will central banks just follow the Fed?