Global Markets Overview: October 2021

In this month’s Global Markets Overview:

Key Points for October

Diverging policy guidance in the recent announcements from central banks

• The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) has pulled forward their guidance regarding their tapering of asset purchases and interest rate increases.
• We expect the rate of asset purchases in the U.S. to start to slow before the end of this year and to stop by around mid-2022. The Fed has signalled interest rate increases are likely to begin in late 2022, compared to their expectations earlier in the year of no change until 2023.
• In contrast, Chinese authorities have slightly eased monetary policy over the past few months – most notably through lowering banks’ reserve requirement ratios. This is consistent with the latest data from China, which shows economic growth slowed in Q3. Looking forward, we expect Chinese growth to rebound in the coming quarters.

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Author

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David Hoile

Global Head of Asset Research at WTW

David is the Global Head of Asset Research at WTW, responsible for economic and capital market research. He also is a member of the Investment Assumptions Committee, who help guide investment policy globally.

email Email phone +44 20 7170 2144

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