"An Unusual Number Of Known Unknowns" – These Are The Key Event Risks In June
By Tyler Durden
One of the recurring concerns voiced by Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett is that with May now in the rearview mirror, we are entering “the event risk month” of June (incidentally, over the weekend, the credit strategist presented several ideas how to trade said event risk, either bullish or bearish). Now it is UBS’ turn to reiterate the warning that June may see a spike in volatility due to “an unusual number of known unknowns.”
According to UBS, in June there will be “an unusual number of known unknowns from several sources. June 2016 is a month in which the number of event risks is particularly high. In our baseline scenarios we do not see market upsets, but the potential is there: Japanese fiscal policy; meetings of the ECB, Fed and BoJ; new ECB policy implementation; a German Constitutional Court ruling; the UK referendum; elections in Spain; and a decision on the FTT are all thrown into the mix.”
Here is the full breakdown, first in table format.
And then the chronological narrative:
1 June: Closing day of the Japanese Diet – new fiscal action?
We expect Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to announce new fiscal policy on 1 June – the closing day of the current session of the Japanese Diet. We think that the scheduled rise in the consumption tax will be delayed and a supplementary budget of ¥5-10tn could be announced. It is also possible that the Lower House is dissolved and new elections called.
2 June-16 June: Central bank meetings
On balance, we do not expect any change in monetary policy to be announced by the ECB, the Federal Reserve or the BoJ in June, but statements and guidance will be watched closely.
First up is the ECB on 2 June. The ECB will present its new staff forecasts at the press conference. We think the key challenge for Mr Draghi will be to not appear too hawkish amid rising oil prices and robust Eurozone Q1 GDP growth, and we believe it too early for the ECB to send strong signals about the duration of QE beyond March of next year. But much will be discussed.
After that, the FOMC will meet on 15 June. We think that it will wait until September before it next raises rates (in part because of upcoming event risk). However, the minutes of the April meeting and recent Fed rhetoric has kept this meeting “live” and expectations higher than they might otherwise have been.
We don’t think that the BoJ will announce a further easing on 16 June, but it will be a close call. We see a 40% chance that it does, and a 60% chance that this takes place by July. If conducted in combination with a fiscal expansion (see above), Japan would in effect be conducting a policy of ‘helicopter money’ and we would expect the polemic to increase in global markets on this subject
6-10 June / 24 June: TLTROs, and other ECB policy implementation
While we do not expect new …read more
Source: "An Unusual Number Of Known Unknowns" – These Are The Key Event Risks In June
