Inflation/Deflation

Our takeaways from this afternoon’s FOMC meeting.

The Bank of Japan delivered a historic policy adjustment this week, ending both negative interest rates and Yield Curve Control. In this Insight, BCA’s global fixed income and currency strategists discuss the immediate implications of the move for Japanese bond yields and the yen, and the potential for additional tightening actions.

Turkey’s macro policy stance can hardly be called orthodox. And yet, corporate profit margins will contract meaningfully this year. The lira can also fall massively even if inflation eases from the extremely high levels – just as it did in the 1990s.

We assess where emerging markets debt is on a strategic and cyclical basis. We find it has benefited from local central banks boosting their inflation-fighting credentials and governments improving financial stability. As a result, EM debt is behaving less like a risk-on asset, changing the role it plays in a global portfolio. We also expand our asset allocation playbook by assessing how the asset class behaves across the business cycle. While EM debt is more than a risk-on play, we suggest investors stay cautious on a cyclical horizon.