Central Banks Continue the ‘Surprise’ Theme

After years of carefully telegraphing their outlooks to the market, central bankers are loosening up with surprise parties, with Singapore the latest to jump in.

“The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is the third central bank in Asia to significantly surprise the market (after the Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of India) and the market will increasingly question who will be next,” HSBC said in a note Wednesday.

The Singapore central bank’s move Wednesday to ease between its usual April and October meetings follows in the footsteps of larger-than-expected quantitative easing steps from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) shock move to unpeg its currency from the euro and slice its interest rates deeper into negative territory. Last week, the Bank of Canada also surprised markets by cutting its benchmark rate for the first time since 2010.

CNBC

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.