Asian central banks to issue policy updates just before the Fed

In addition to potential Fed effects, China macro risk will be the dominant influence upon Asian markets with potential spillover to the global market tone. Monday's updates for retail sales and industrial production will be followed by Thursday's property prices that have been gaining limited traction of late. Consensus expects a stabilization in both retail sales (+10.6% y/y) and industrial output (+6.3% y/y) following recent softness. 

If only one could go back in the year to reset the meeting schedules. Going after Thursday's Fed meeting might have made more sense. Instead, several Asian central banks will issue policy updates just before the Fed and no they don't have a special red phone to the Fed that will tip them off on the decision before you and I know. Each of them faces a potential easing bias in the relatively short-term. 

Included on this list will be the Bank of Japan on Monday night (eastern time), the Bank of Thailand on Wednesday, and Bank Indonesia either on Wednesday or Thursday. Each of these central banks nevertheless faces unique domestic influences upon their decision. Bank Indonesia is plagued by softening growth but fairly high inflation due to currency weakness. The risk is that of a cut, but the rupiah has dropped by a further 4% since the last monetary policy decision on August 18th. 

The Bank of Thailand is expected to hold rates, but here too the risk is that of a cut with inflation falling to -1.2% y/y. The Bank of Japan story has recently gotten more interesting in the wake of comments provided by a senior legislator. Liberal Democratic Party member Kozo Yamamoto - an advisor to Prime Minister Abe - noted this past week that the central bank should increase its asset purchases by ¥10 trillion next month. This sparked considerable weakness in the yen which was among the weakest major crosses versus the USD of late.