Fed rate hikes could spell end to global easing

The Federal Reserve’s return to higher interest rates could lend a hand to beleaguered counterparts in Japan and Europe and signal the end of a long cycle of monetary stimulus across Asia, as central banks from Beijing to Ankara to London reacted to the US policy change.

The Fed’s widely anticipated and modest rate hike on last Wednesday was only its third since the global financial crisis. But it came earlier than investors had expected only weeks ago and it sets the stage for roughly two more hikes this year as the US economy strengthens.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, responded by raising its key policy rates to head off a weakening of its currency. That same reason prompted central banks in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain to tighten policies within 90 minutes of the Fed’s announcement.

Among major economies, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank remain locked in an aggressive battle against low inflation and growth. And while the pair are nowhere near raising rates or tapering stimulative bond buying — as Governor Haruhiko Kuroda made clear when the BoJ held policy steady on Thursday — the pair has recently begun sounding more optimistic that their time will soon come.

The dollar shot up by about 25 per cent in 2014 and 2015 as the US central bank prepared to raise rates from near zero, and it has stayed elevated even while the Fed got off to a slow and halting start to tightening.

While a stronger dollar cuts costs for exporters in Japan and Europe, boosting such economies, it prompts a flight of capital from fragile emerging economies that still need monetary accommodation.

“At the very least, the Fed’s desire to step up the pace of policy normalisation has changed the conversation at many central banks globally,” said Sean Callow, an economist with Westpac in Sydney. Further monetary easing among Asian emerging economies, he said, “is now largely seen as only if needed to ‘break the glass’, not a plausible baseline.”

For the BoJ and ECB, however, “the Fed raising rates gives more leeway... to do the same without it adversely impacting their currency,” said Shehriyar Antia, former senior analyst at the New York Fed and founder of Macro Insight Group in New York.

In a surprise, the Bank of England said one of its policymakers voted this week to raise borrowing costs and some others felt it would not take much for them to follow suit, signalling growing pressure to tighten even while rates were kept low at 0.25 per cent.

The Fed’s shadow was also present in Turkey, where a policy rate was tightened on Thursday, and in Finland, where the central bank forecast the Nordic euro zone economy was picking up pace following a decade-long stagnation.

ECB President Mario Draghi, who signalled last week less urgency for more stimulus, would welcome US rate hikes that depress the euro. The central bank is paving the way to a gradual phasing out of accommodation and resisting isolated calls from some members calling for more radical action.

Deutsche Bank economists wrote in a note that the ECB “is slowly shifting towards a less dovish stance, with an announcement of a tapering of (asset purchases) towards zero likely by year end.” The Fed’s new policy path is a sea change for global markets used to a decade of easy money. And while emerging markets are showing some signs of strength, with a recovery in commodity prices and growth in exports, they are struggling to fire up domestic demand.