Daily Update - 18th April 2017
Yesterday’s Focus Haruhiko Governor Kuroda held a speech in Japan about monetary policies in Tokyo. On his speech he mentioned about response to changing environment and also talked about new issues on impact on market structure, price formation, ensuring information security and data privacy. This implies that information security and data privacy would be even more critical in providing financial services. The muted market reaction to recent hints from the U.S. central bank that reductions to its $4.5 trillion balance sheet could begin later this year suggests the policy shift may go smoothly after all, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer said on Monday. They reaffirmed that policymakers are comfortable with a total of three hikes this year, in line with the median ‘dot plot’ of individual policymakers. They also confirmed that discussions are taking place about the potential reduction of the Fed’s balance sheet, which may start as soon as later this year. Today’s Focus The day will release its report on the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia meetings are published two weeks after the interest rate decision. The minutes give a full account of the policy discussion, including differences of view. Heading towards US data will release its Housing Starts, Industrial Production by the Board of th Governors of Federal Reserve which shows the volume of production of US industries such as factories and manufacturing. Up trend is regarded as inflationary which may anticipate interest rates to rise and the Capacity Utilization released by the Federal Reserve Board is the percentage of the US production capacity which is actually used over the short-time period. It is indicative of overall growth and demand in the U.S
