Business Day: WATCH: SA Reserve Bank rates preview

Michael Avery talks to Annabel Bishop, John Dludlu and Matthew Parks

Overnight the Fed indicated that it is committed to continuing hiking in the face of persistent core PCE inflation (personal consumption expenditure inflation) the US, taking the fed Funds rate to 3%-3.25% and indicating that a further 1.25% in increases is due by year-end.

In a sobering new set of projections, the US Federal Reserve foresees its policy rate rising at a faster pace and to a higher level than expected, the economy slowing to a crawl, and unemployment rising to a degree historically associated with recessions.

Now its all eyes on the SA Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee, which is widely forecast to hike the repo rate by 75 basis points (bps) to 6.25% at the conclusion of its three-day meeting today, even after Stats SA reported that inflation eased slightly to an annual 7.6% in August from 7.8% a month earlier.

However, the reading was above the consensus forecast of 7.5%

Michael Avery spoke to Annabel Bishop, Investec chief economist; John Dludlu, executive for strategy and public affairs at the Small Business Institute; and Matthew Parks, parliamentary co-ordinator for Cosatu

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