Global Market Reviews

Hungarian and Polish central bankers will decide on monetary policy next week, and while no change is expected in Warsaw, Budapest’s policy makers are poised to cut interest rates.

Analysts and financial markets both expect monetary easing in Hungary Monday. All 16 private bank economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires see the Hungarian Monetary Policy Council lowering the policy rate from 9.5%, the highest in the European Union. And 13 of them expect a 50 basis-point rate cut, while the others foreseeing that or a 25 basis-point cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Philippine government is considering funding its 2010 offshore borrowing requirements this year. That makes a lot of sense with interest rates likely to raise and the country facing political risk as a May election looms.

“If you can’t wait until the second half of next year, why not prefund now?,”
said Rafael Algarra, treasurer at Security Bank Corp. in Manila. “And even if
you could wait to take the uncertainty of the election out of the equation,
interest rates might be going up by then.” Read the rest of this entry »