Did the Riksbank of Sweden just panic?

This morning has brought news of an event that had been promised so many times but turned out to be a false dawn. Indeed on their way to apparently making sense of this world Rosa & Roubini Associates told us this.

Riksbank Likely to Wait Longer Before Lift-Off

I guess you are now all expecting this.

Economic activity is strong and the conditions are good for inflation to remain close to the inflation target in the period ahead. As inflation and inflation expectations have become established at around 2 per cent, the need for a highly expansionary monetary policy has decreased slightly. The Executive Board has therefore decided to raise the repo rate from −0.50 per cent to −0.25 per cent.

Actually there is quite a bit that is odd about this as indeed there has been, in my opinion, about the monetary policy of the world’s oldest central bank for some time. Let me give you two clear reasons to be doubtful. Firstly GDP growth plummeted from the 1% of the second quarter of this year to -0.2% in the third. Or as the Riksbank puts it.

As expected, Swedish GDP growth has slowed down during
the second half of this year. However, the downturn in the third  quarter was greater than expected.

So if we step back we immediately wonder why you raise rates when economic growth is slowing when you could have done so when it was rising? The excuse provided looks weak especially as we note the automobile industry has continued to struggle.

One contributory cause of  this was that household consumption fell by a surprisingly large  degree, but this can partly be explained by temporarily weak car sales.

Also inconvenient numbers are regularly described as temporary even when they are nothing of the sort.

Moving onto inflation the outlook has also changed as we have moved towards the end of 2018.

The inflation rate according to the CPI with a fixed interest rate (CPIF) was 2.1 percent in November 2018 (2.4 percent in October). The CPIF decreased by 0.1 percent from October to November.  ( Sweden Statistics)

Here is FXStreet from last week when these numbers came out.

Nordea Markets 1/2: #Sweden: CPIF inflation stood at 2.1% in November, below consensus and 0.3% point below the #Riksbank’s forecast. Core inflation, i.e. CPIF ex energy, came out at 1.4%, as much as 0.3% point below the Riksbank’s call.

To be fair to Nordea they were expecting a hike so perhaps they had received an official nod because there is now another factor at play. That is of course the lower trajectory of the oil price which looks set to depress headline inflation numbers in the weeks and months ahead. If we take a broad sweep the price of a barrel of Brent Crude Oil has fallen some US $30 since the Riksbank balked at raising Swedish interest-rates. I think you can spot the problem here. Apparently the wages fairy will turn up which of course is yet another central banking standard view in spite of reality not being that helpful.

Wage growth has certainly become a little lower than
the Riksbank’s forecast over recent months and the forecast has been revised downwards slightly.

The Riksbank’s own view

Let me know switch to some sections of their monetary report which frankly would fit better with an interest-rate cut.

The global economy, which has grown rapidly in recent years, is now entering a phase of more subdued GDP growth, which is in line with the Riksbank’s earlier forecasts.

So Sweden is swimming against the trend?

Economic activity in Sweden is still strong, although GDP growth and inflation have been weaker than expected.

So definitely maybe. What about inflation prospects?

Even though inflation has been lower than expected, the conditions remain good for inflation to stay close to the inflation target going forward.

Then we get quite a swerve because you might think that with the claimed view of the Riksbank more interest-rate hikes will be on the way. It would be logical assuming there is anyone who believes the growth path remains strong and inflation will be ~2% per annum. But apparently not.

The forecast for the repo rate has therefore been revised downwards to indicate that the next repo rate rise will probably occur during the second half of 2019 . After this, the forecast indicates approximately two rate rises per year by 0.25 percentage points each time.

If we skip the last sentence on the grounds that this has been not far off the promised pattern since the Riksbank last raised back in 2011 we see that what is now called a “dovish hike” has just taken place. What that means is that whilst there has been a rise the future expected path falls. Thus if you follow central banking forward guidance interest-rates as 2019 develops may now be lower than you were expecting.

Operation Twist and QE

The other factors in Sweden’s monetary policy are described below.

At the end of November, the Riksbank’s government bond
holdings amounted to just under SEK 350 billion, expressed as a nominal amount.

But they are giving Operation Twist an extra squeeze.

In December 2017, the Executive Board also decided that reinvestments of the large principal payments due in the first six months of 2019 should be allocated evenly across the period from January 2018 to June 2019 . This means that the Riksbank’s holdings of government bonds will increase temporarily in 2018 and the beginning of 2019.

If you wished to tighten monetary policy then you could simply let these bonds mature and not replace them.

US Federal Reserve

As we were expecting it did this last night.

Today, we raised our target range for short-term interest
rates by another quarter of a percentage point. ( Chair Powell)

Not everyone was on board however as there was a nearly 800 point swing in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in response to it. This also meant it ignored the advice from President Trump not to do so and to cut the amount of Quantitative Tightening. The issue was summed up by the Wall Street Journal but not in the way the author thought it meant.

The data says the economy is doing great; the markets say it could be headed for a recession.

At turning points the data is always too late by definition which means that some sort of judgement call is required. Central banks have about a 0% success rate in predicting recessions.

Comment

There is a fair bit to consider in the latest central banking moves but the major point is one of timing. Monetary policy is supposed to lead events and not to lag them which is why “data dependency” is not only flawed it is illogical. To be fair to the US Federal Reserve it has at least tried to get ahead of events whereas the Riksbank has not.

Meanwhile there is a country with a central bank meeting today which has just had some strong economic news.

The quantity bought in November 2018 when compared with October 2018 increased by 1.4%, with a strong monthly growth of 5.3% in household goods stores….The strongest growth can be seen in comparison with the same period a year earlier where the amount spent increased by 5.0% and the quantity bought increased by 3.6%.

Is anybody expecting Mark Carney and the Bankof England to have raised interest-rates in response to the strong retail sales data? I am using the past tense as the vote was last night.

Number Crunching

https://twitter.com/RoelD_/status/1075677184918999040