Will the SARB raise rates by 50 basis points?
In this article we preview the SARB MPC rates meeting and take a look at how the rand is trading into the event.
When is the SARB rates announcement?
The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is set to conclude its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting on Thursday the 19th of May 2022 and in turn announce any changes to domestic lending rates. The SARB announcement and press conference to follow will take place at 3pm (Thursday).
What to expect from the MPC meeting
A 50 basis point rate hike while not a definite, appears the probable outcome at the upcoming MPC meeting. The SARB will be looking to try maintaining some price stability as inflation looks set to breach the 6% mark. The recent blowout in the Rand has certainly not made things easier. The ongoing war and Chinese lockdowns continue to distort the inflation outlook as well, through both demand and supply side dynamics.
The Reserve Bank will also be trying to keep up with what is now a faster pace of monetary policy normalization around the world, to maintain a relative attractiveness of yield differentials.
The fine line our central bank walks, is the impact of aggressive tightening amidst a slowing economic recovery, which will have been further negatively impacted by the KZN floods. Concern is also drawn around a slowdown in China which will have a knock-on effect for domestic GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
On balance it does seem like the SARB will want to try get ahead of the curve at this meeting with a 50 basis point increase instead of the 25 basis point increments we have become accustomed to, keeping the view that rates are still accommodative on a relative basis.
The Rand
The USD/ZAR looks to be reversing off both the R16.35/$ resistance level and from overbought territory at present.
R15.70/$ becomes the initial support target from the move, although currently this would assume a short term correction of a longer term uptrend. Should the short term correction manage to extend past the 200 day simple moving average and horizontal support at R15.30/$, only then would the longer term trend bias be reevaluated.
For now, our preference remains looking for long entry into the short term correction until such time as the R15.30/$ support level is broken.
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