UK FISCAL: UK financial reforms set out ahead of Leeds / Mansion House speeches
Jul-15 10:55
A number of the Chancellors' announcements that were expected to come out in her Mansion House speech tonight have already been published early on the government's website. Amongst these are:
- What the government's news page refers to as "the biggest set of reforms to financial regulation in a decade" in what are to be known as the "Leeds reforms." This includes a removal of red tape and is going to be accompanied by an announcement that Nationwide will ease its lending criteria. More mortgages are to be made available at 4.5 times buyers' income with a lower salary of GBP30,000 (from GBP35,000) or for joint applicants GBP50,000 (down from GBP55,000) which the press release says "will support an additional 10,000 first time buyers".
- Instead of the reform of ISAs, there is to be "an advertising campaign that will highlight the opportunities of investing for consumers who are able to do so." Part of the press release notes that if someone invested GBP2,000 and had investment growth equal to the last 10 years that they would then have GBP9,000 in 20 years time (compared to GBP2,700 in a cash account). It remains to be seen if this will actually change any incentives or lead to any increase in holding equities rather than cash.
- There will be a "streamline" of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime and a reform of the ring-fencing regime.
- This will be accompanied by the BOE's change to regulations this morning that raised the MREL threshold to GBP25-40bln from January 2027.
- There is no mention of pension reforms and increases to auto enrolment (which may still features in the Mansion House speech later).
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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.
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)
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
