MALAYSIA: Anwar Says Announcement On Judicial Appointments Will Be Made Tomorrow

Jul-15 10:10

Local media report that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said that the Conference of Rulers will make an announcement on key judicial appointments tomorrow, which should 'put to rest all the negative perceptions' around the process. 

  • The government has been under criticism over alleged interference in the judicial appointment process, which has thrown the judiciary into a crisis. Following the retirement of two most senior judges (Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuat Mat and Court of Appeal President Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim) last week, and the looming retirement of nine Federal Court judges by the end of 2025, the judiciary is facing a severe shortage of judges, while the government appears to have been dragging its feet in nominating replacements.
  • Malaysiakini reported that 'several Pakatan Harapan MPs told Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim during their meeting yesterday not to nominate a certain senior judge for top judicial position' over concerns that said individual was implicated in an alleged judicial interference scandal. Anwar did not disclose whether he would submit the judge's name to the Conference of Rulers and did not show his interlocutors the list of candidates for the next Chief Justice, Court of Appeal President and Chief Judge of Malaya.
  • Seeking to contain the crisis, the government invited the Bar Council to participate in a review of the judicial appointment process and said it was conducting preliminary work on potential reforms. This comes after hundreds of Malaysian lawyers protested in front of the Prime Minister's office yesterday, while CNA reported that 'battlelines have been shaping up for some time between the Anwar administration and certain segments of the judiciary' in what may become a political challenge.

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US FISCAL: Available Extraordinary Measures Pick Up Ahead Of Tax Date

Jun-13 20:42

Treasury had $144B in "extraordinary measures" available to keep the government financed as of June 11 per a release Friday. That is up from $84B a week earlier and the highest since April 28. 

  • However, TGA cash continues to fall, to $309B latest (lowest since early April) Combined with a pullback in Treasury cash ($376B), keeping the total resources  available to avert an "x-date" in the summer at around $450B .
  • There will be another uptick in Treasury cash in the coming days, and it's likely Treasury allowed some of the extraordinary measures to be rebuilt (ie not exercised) in anticipation of more cash coming in.
  • This is likely to be the  last major uplift before the summer at which point x-date speculation will  pick up if Congress hasn't passed a debt limit increase by then.
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FED: Two Cuts Priced This Year Headed Into FOMC Week

Jun-13 20:28

As we head into the June Fed meeting week, market pricing is reflective of the FOMC’s messaging (that we describe in our preview): 

  • The next cut is only fully priced by the October FOMC meeting, with September seeing a roughly 80% implied probability of bringing the next 25bp reduction.
  • Exactly 50bp of cuts are priced through end-2025, implying two Q4 cuts.
  • That’s a shift from just after the May meeting, after which the next cut was fully priced by September, and there were closer to three cuts priced for the rest of the year.
  • Overall cuts are seen backloaded this year (after 15bp in September, 29bp of cuts priced in Q4 - Oct/Dec combined), but falls off in Q1 (just 21bp cuts priced, 9bp of cuts priced for January and 12bp for March)
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FED: Summary Of Economic Projections: Higher 2025 Inflation, Weaker Growth

Jun-13 20:21

The MNI Markets Team’s expectations for the updated Economic Projections are below. 

  • As of the May meeting, the Federal Reserve staff – whose outlook tends to be broadly shared by the median Committee member – revised their forecasts for growth weaker in 2025 and 2026, “as announced trade policies implied a larger drag on real activity relative to the policies that the staff had assumed in their previous forecast. Trade policies were also expected to lead to slower productivity growth and therefore to reduce potential GDP growth over the next few years. With the drag on demand expected to start earlier and to be larger than the supply response, the output gap was projected to widen significantly over the forecast period. The labor market was expected to weaken substantially, with the unemployment rate forecast moving above the staff's estimate of its natural rate by the end of this year and remaining above the natural rate through 2027."
  • On inflation, "The staff's inflation projection was higher than the one prepared for the March meeting. Tariffs were expected to boost inflation markedly this year and to provide a smaller boost in 2026; after that, inflation was projected to decline to 2 percent by 2027."
  • Our expectations for these changes fall somewhere in between those projections and the March SEP – a slightly higher unemployment rate, substantially higher inflation in 2025 but to a lesser extent in 2026, and weaker GDP growth this year. Longer-run variables should be unchanged.

MNI Markets Team Expectations For June 2025 Summary Of Economic Projections Medians

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