news

a list of major financial events from september 16 to september 22, all in beijing time:

next week is "super central bank week", with a focus on the interest rate decisions of the us and japanese central banks, china's september lpr quotation and mlf renewal. central banks of many countries including the united kingdom, brazil, norway, indonesia will also announce their latest interest rate decisions one after another. european central bank president lagarde and several members will deliver speeches during the week.

also of concern: us retail sales in august, japan's cpi in august, eurozone's preliminary consumer confidence in september, and the suspension arrangements of asia-pacific exchanges during the mid-autumn festival holiday.

will lpr be “cut” in september?

on friday (september 20), the people's bank of china will announce the september lpr quotes.

following a 10 basis point reduction in the 1-year and 5-year lpr in july, the lpr remained unchanged in august. the current 1-year lpr is 3.35%, and the lpr for more than 5 years is 3.85%.

on friday, the national bureau of statistics released the august financial data. in response to the sluggish demand for residents' loans, the chief economist of china minsheng bankat this stage, the market has a strong call for another reduction in the interest rates on existing mortgage loans. lowering the interest rates on existing mortgage loans will to a certain extent help alleviate the phenomenon of early mortgage repayments, enhance the sustainability of residents' debts, promote the recovery of residents' consumption demand, and create a fairer financing environment.

wen bin said,looking ahead, there is a high probability that the interest rates on existing mortgage loans will be lowered.it will also gradually move closer to the pricing of newly occurring mortgages, which will generally help stabilize residents' credit.but at the same time, in an environment where bank interest margins are increasingly under pressure, it is also necessary to further lower deposit rates and reduce liability costs, thereby enhancing the sustainability of financial support for entities.

the head of the relevant department of the central bank was interpreting the financial statistics for august., monetary policy will be more flexible, appropriate, precise and effective, increase regulatory efforts, and accelerate the implementation of the financial policy measures that have been issued.we will start to launch some incremental policy measures.further reduce corporate financing and household credit costs and maintain reasonable liquidity. xiong yuan, chief economist of guosheng securities, predicts thatmy country's central bank may further cut reserve requirements and interest rates this year.it is also likely that the interest rates on existing mortgage loans will be lowered.

huatai securitieswhen commenting on the economic data for august, it was pointed out that looking forward, the improvement of my country's manufacturing competitiveness is still expected to support export growth, but the weak domestic demand may increase the urgency and necessity of countercyclical policy adjustments.it is expected that september and october may usher in a "window period" for policy easing.

regarding the timing of policy adjustments such as lowering the reserve requirement ratio and interest rates, zou lan, director of the monetary policy department of the people's bank of china, also responded at the state council information office press conference.his statement was that "we still need to observe the economic trends."zou lan also said that the goal of using the statutory deposit reserve ratio, 7-day reverse repurchase, medium-term lending facility and the purchase and sale of government bonds is to maintain a reasonable level of liquidity in the banking system.it is still subject to the dual constraints of "deposit migration" and bank net interest margin pressure.

on wednesday (september 18), the central bank's one-year medium-term lending facility (mlf) of 591 billion yuan will mature. pay attention to the central bank's renewal of maturing loans.

the mlf, which expired on the 15th of last month, was renewed on august 26. wen bin said that the central bank's announcement of the renewal of the mlf on the 26th further released the signal that the mlf operation would be routinely postponed to the 25th. wang qing, chief macro analyst at orient securities, also believed that as the mlf policy interest rate faded, it was no longer necessary to conduct mlf operations on the 15th of each month to provide a pricing basis for the lpr quotation of that month.

the "decoupling" between the mlf interest rate and the lpr is also gradually emerging. in the second quarter monetary policy report released earlier, the central bank stated thatlpr quotes have shifted to refer more to the central bank's short-term policy interest rate.the interest rate transmission relationship from short to long periods of time is gradually being straightened out.

the much-anticipated federal reserve interest rate decision: 50 basis points or 25 basis points?

in the early morning of thursday (september 19), the federal reserve will announce its september interest rate decision, and federal reserve chairman powell will deliver a speech at 2:30.

at present, the fed’s interest rate cut is almost a done deal, but the extent of the cut remains uncertain.

the recently released data are "mixed", and neither inflation nor employment data can "determine" the extent of the interest rate cut.wednesday's cpi data showed that inflation remains sticky, raising the probability of a 25 basis point rate cut. thursday's ppi data showed a significant year-on-year decline, further increasing the possibility of a 50 basis point rate cut.

on thursday local time, nick timiraos, a reporter for the wall street journal known as the "federal reserve news agency",starting with a 25 basis point rate cut is the path of least resistance, which can avoid the market panic caused by a large rate cut and the challenge of explaining a large rate cut before the election; but starting with a 50 basis point rate cut can reduce market debate about the extent of subsequent rate cuts.

after timiraos' article was released, the market's probability of a rate cut in september turned significantly higher, erasing the decline after wednesday's cpi data.

a speech by bill dudley, former third-in-command of the federal reserve and former president of the new york fed, at a forum in singapore on friday also fueled expectations of a sharp rate cut.

“i think there’s a strong case for a 50 basis point cut, whether they (the fed) cut rates or not.”

as of friday evening local time,traders are betting on the probability of the federal reserve cutting interest rates by 50 basis points next week, which has jumped sharply to 50%, from just 15% on thursday.

as expectations of interest rate cuts are expected to be fulfilled soon, gold prices broke through their all-time high on friday (september 13). the spot gold price once reached us$2,586.09 per ounce. the price rose by more than us$80 this week, marking the strongest single-week performance since 2020.

focus on when the bank of japan will raise interest rates next time

on friday morning (september 20), the bank of japan announced its september interest rate decision, and its governor kazuo ueda will hold a monetary policy press conference at 14:30.

market research results show thatjust over half of observers believe the bank of japan will next raise interest rates in december, with no rate hike expected at its september meeting.we will then pay attention to kazuo ueda’s remarks on the timing of the next interest rate hike after the meeting.

however, junko nakagawa, a member of the bank of japan's board of directors, said in a speech on wednesday (september 11) that the pace of adjusting the level of monetary easing depends on economic, inflation and financial conditions. as long as the economic performance meets expectations, the bank of japan will continue to adjust its monetary policy.

currently, traders are evaluating the impact of the bank of japan's monetary policy and the us presidential debate on the foreign exchange market. analysts said that if japan's next interest rate hike is in december, the expected interest rate cut by the federal reserve may trigger a sharp rebound in the usd/jpy.the best window for dollar bulls to return to the market will occur before the end of next week.

other important data, meetings and events

• u.s. retail sales in august

on tuesday (september 17), the u.s. census bureau will release month-on-month retail sales data for august.u.s. retail sales grew 1% month-on-month in july, exceeding expectations across the board. the overall retail sales growth rate hit a one-and-a-half-year high, but the data for the previous month was revised downward for the eighth consecutive month. the view that the economy is in a soft landing still needs more data to support it.

recently publishedit shows that with the decline in us inflation, consumers' short-term inflation expectations have fallen to the lowest level since december 2020, and the initial value of the us consumer confidence index in september hit a four-month high. among them, the improvement in purchasing conditions for durable goods is the main factor driving the growth of the consumer confidence index, and consumers believe that prices are more favorable.

• the 9th huawei connect conference

the 9th huawei connect conference will be held from september 19th to september 21st, with the theme of "win-win industry intelligence", which will include kunpeng, ascend computing power base, hongmeng native development ecosystem, and ai application landing.

at that time, huawei will also showcase its intelligent solutions in nine major fields, including finance, government affairs, manufacturing, electricity, and railways, including huawei galaxy ai network, new energy power prediction ai solution, etc., to promote its comprehensive intelligence strategy (all intelligence).

• japan august cpi

on friday (september 20), japan's ministry of internal affairs and communications will release the august cpi data. data released last month showed that the core cpi excluding fresh food rose 2.7% year-on-year to 108.3, rising for 35 consecutive months, and the increase has expanded for three consecutive months, indicating that inflation is steadily rising.

as the japanese government canceled subsidies for electricity and gas, rising energy prices became the main reason for the rise in cpi. in july this year, japan's electricity bills rose by 22.3% year-on-year, and city gas bills rose by 10.8%, pushing energy prices up by 12.0% year-on-year, significantly exceeding the 7.7% in june, and affecting the cpi increase by 0.9 percentage points.

at 24:00 on friday (september 20), a new round of price adjustment window for domestic refined oil will open.

on september 5, domestic oil prices saw their seventh drop this year: no. 92 gasoline was reduced by 0.08 yuan per liter, no. 95 gasoline was reduced by 0.08 yuan per liter, and no. 0 diesel was reduced by 0.08 yuan per liter. according to media estimates, based on the 50-liter capacity of a typical household car's fuel tank, a full tank of no. 92 gasoline would cost 4 yuan less.

since the beginning of this year, china's refined oil prices have experienced 18 price adjustment windows, including 7 increases, 7 decreases and 4 suspensions.

new opportunities

during the week (september 16-september 20), two new a-shares were issued online.midea groupit will be listed on the main board of hong kong, achieving "a+h" listing.

a total of 9 new funds (class a and class c combined) were issued that week, including 0 bond funds, 2 mixed funds, 0 stock funds, 4 index funds and 1 reits.