Traders maintain bets on rate rise in 2020 as September inflation jumps
Forward-rate agreements show Reserve Bank could hike rate by as much as 50 basis points after consumer prices rise to four-month high
Traders held bets that SA’s central bank will increase interest rates this year after inflation quickened to a four-month high in September.
Forward-rate agreements starting a month from now, used to speculate on borrowing costs, are now fully pricing in a 25 basis-point hike and a 64% chance of a 50-point increase at the next meeting of the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee on November 18.
Data from Stats SA shows the annual inflation rate climbed to 5%, from 4.9% in August. That matched the median estimate of 14 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Consumer prices advanced 4.8% in the third quarter, in line with the Bank’s forecast.
The five-year break-even rate — seen as a measure of bond traders’ expectations for price rises — remained unchanged.
The main drivers of the prices rises were food and non-alcoholic beverages, transport, housing and utilities, Stats SA said. Core inflation, which excludes the prices of food, non-alcoholic drinks, fuel and electricity, remained benign, suggesting there is little demand pressure in an economy that’s slowly recovering from its deepest contraction in at least 27 years.
Economists’ views diverge from those of traders, with most expecting rates to remain at a record low of 3.5% until the first quarter of next year. GDP is expected to have contracted in the three months through September, partly due to deadly riots and looting that erupted in July and derailed economic activity in two of the nine provinces.
The misalignment between market pricing and economists’ expectations illustrates the dilemma facing central banks. Policymakers worldwide are debating whether faster inflation linked to pandemic-induced supply-chain disruptions is transient or something more persistent.
Earlier this month the Reserve Bank said that while the modest inflation trajectory underpinned the decisions of its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to keep the key rate on hold since July 2020, risks to the outlook “have risen and become more broad-based”. The Bank prefers to anchor inflation expectations close to the 4.5% midpoint of its target range.
“These developments imply a need for interest rates to begin normalising,” the Bank said in its six-monthly Monetary Policy Review.
The implied policy rate path of the Bank’s quarterly projection model, which the MPC uses as a guide, indicates a 25-basis point increase in the final quarter of 2021 and in every quarter of 2022 and 2023.
Bloomberg News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com