EDITORIAL: Time for Bank to be brave and slash rates
It’s a big and exciting week for monetary policy. The US Federal Reserve meets and is expected finally to implement the first interest rate cut since it started hiking rates in March 2022.
That is a huge moment. It is easy to forget that as recently as the first quarter of 2022 the Fed funds rate was still at near zero levels. When inflation spiked and the Fed belatedly embarked on a series of sharp interest rate hikes, it was a shock to a system that had long been used for ultra-cheap money. That era of zero interest rates may never return. But the start of the downcycle changes the market arithmetic, not just for the US but for global financial conditions, and for emerging markets such as SA...
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