The week ahead
Price pops in the fixed-income market seem to show speculators starting to place bets that June’s slowing inflation could give the BSP enough cover to pivot and begin lowering rates. Let’s take a look at what this week has in store.
PH: Monday is the last day of the NexGen [XG] IPO offer period ahead of its IPO on July 16th. Premium Leisure [PLC suspended] will then delist on Tuesday after a successful tender offer and delisting petition by PLC’s parent company, Belle Corp [BEL 2.41 ?1.6%; 113% avgVol].
International: Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, will testify in front of the US Senate and Congress on Wednesday and Thursday. On Thursday, the Central Bank of Malaysia will set its interest rate, and then on Friday morning, we’ll get the US CPI data for June.
MB BOTTOM-LINE: I feel drawn to paying attention to the macroeconomic side of things right now, as it feels like we’re at an inflection point between the tight monetary policy we’ve seen since the start of the inflation crisis and whatever loosening we’ll get this year and next. Whether a central bank moves to lower interest rates to prevent a recession or because their country’s economic metrics simply don’t support keeping rates at this plateau, it will be interesting to see how the differences in approach impact the results that each country will experience. Just like we saw with COVID, there are real-world consequences for the country as a whole that follow from the government’s policy decisions, and my bet is that those consequences are not going to be felt equally between the upper, middle, and lower classes within each country. Any bets on who is going to get the worst of it?
Merkado Barkada is a free daily newsletter on the PSE, investing and business in the Philippines. You can subscribe to the newsletter or follow on Twitter to receive the full daily updates.