ICYMI – Morgan Stanley expect the Fed to cut rates in March

December payroll data from the US was much stronger than expected:

• Forexlive Americas FX news wrap 10 Jan: Strong US jobs sends the USD & yields higher.

The +256,000 headline significantly beat expectations of 160,000.

The highest expected was +200,000, while the 140K-185K range showed the most clustering. If you didn’t know this going into the data you are missing out. Results that are well outside of what is expected usually precipitate big moves, as evident on Friday. Its why Guisseppe and I post such data ahead of major releases such as NFP, CPI and such.

Anyway, back to Morgan Stanley.

After the super-strong data analysts there are unmoved on their Fed expectations:

• still expect a March Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) rate cut (the meeting is on 18-19)
• “the report should reduce the probability of near-term Fed cuts
• our more favorable outlook on inflation keeps us thinking a March cut is still more likely than not”

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.