Policymakers at the Federal Reserve are expected to bring a measure of Christmas cheer to borrowers this week, with officials widely forecast to lower borrowing costs on Wednesday.

An economists’ poll predicted the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will cut interest rates by 25 basis points, taking the Fed funds target range to 3.50%-3.75%, at the close of its two-day meeting.

Barclays’ Marc Giannoni maintains his call for a December cut, citing rising downside risks to employment, despite mixed signals from Fed speakers during the inter-meeting period. “Our expectation has been based on labour market indicators showing some weakening, creating enough concern among FOMC members for them to ultimately cut again.”

Analysts also expect the Fed to announce term repo operations and reserve management purchases from January.

Dissent is likely, with pushback anticipated both from doves favouring a larger move and hawks wary that inflation pressures remain sticky. “The minutes of the 28-29 October FOMC meeting indicate that participants were divided on the decision to cut rates in October,” Giannoni noted. “While most judged that rates would need to be lowered over time, they expressed strongly differing views about the appropriate December decision.” (LiveSquawk – Continue Reading)

Swiss rate-setters are widely expected to hold their key rates at current levels Thursday, a stance they may adopt for the longer term, according to analysts.

An economists’ poll predicted an unchanged Swiss National Bank policy rate of zero percent, with only very few analysts noting that the bank could lower its benchmark rate into negative territory at -0.25%. A hold this month would repeat the decision in September, which followed six straight reductions, including cuts of 25 basis points in June and March, and 50bp last December.

Headline annual inflation in the Alpine country last month dropped to zero from 0.1% in October, keeping it at the bottom of the SNB target range of 0-2%. November consumer prices contracted -0.2% on the month versus the previous flat reading. But this increased weakness in consumer price growth is unlikely to spur officials into a rate cut on Thursday. (LiveSquawk – Continue Reading)

U.S. container imports fell 7.8% in November from the year earlier, due to soft demand for goods from China and one less day in the Thanksgiving holiday month, supply chain technology provider Descartes Systems Group said on Tuesday.

Seaports handled 2,183,048 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of imports in November, in line with normal seasonal drops. Still, it was the fourth-strongest November on record - trailing 2020, 2021 and 2024 - despite trade policy and economic uncertainty.

Imports from China fell 19.7% year over year, a major driver of the overall volume pullback last month. (Investing – Continue Reading)

Private-sector data is taking on greater importance as a measure of the economy. As its influence grows, it’s essential to understand the size, scope, and representation of these data sets.

In this note, we examine one of these data series, the ADP National Employment Report (NER) for private-sector payrolls, to assess how well it represents the U.S. workforce.

We compare ADP’s administrative payroll data to the universe of U.S. employees as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). We also compare ADP data to the BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey data, which is used to construct the BLS non-farm payroll report each month. (ADP Research – Continue Reading)