HUNGARY
Analyst
Istvan Racz
Former Director, Central BankDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
Kind reminder: the MNB is likely to hold the base rate at tomorrow's rate-setting meeting
HUNGARY · In Brief · 21 Oct 2024
The Monetary Council is set to hold its monthly rate-setting meeting tomorrow. With EURHUF at 402, as we are writing this note, a rate cut is highly unlikely this time.This morning, Portfolio.hu published the results of its regular analyst poll. All twelve respondents expect that the Council will...
Growth forecast revised down significantly
HUNGARY · Forecast · 18 Oct 2024
In this quarterly update, we are revising our GDP forecast downward by a significant amount, following similar recent moves by other forecasters but taking a somewhat more pessimistic view than most of the other forecasts we know (Table 1). We are doing so on account of the continued, and current...
September inflation down as expected, MNB cools early rate cut expectations
HUNGARY · In Brief · 10 Oct 2024
In September, headline CPI-inflation has been reported as -0.1% mom, 3% yoy, core inflation as 0% mom, 4.8% yoy this morning. The yoy headline rate came from 3.4%, whereas core inflation rose from 4.6%, both actual data from August. As a result, the chart with the headline rate, the core rate and...
Expect a temporarily low headline inflation figure tomorrow
HUNGARY · In Brief · 09 Oct 2024
The September CPI-inflation data is due from KSH early morning tomorrow. There seems to be broad consensus that a significantly lower number is likely to show up for the headline rate compared to all recent data, indeed the lowest seen at any time since February 2021. There is also broad consensu...
On new data releases: weak industry, strengthening consumption, and moderate surpluses on the BOP
HUNGARY · In Brief · 07 Oct 2024
1. Industrial output fell 0.5% mom, 3.5% yoy in August, he latter following -6.4% yoy in July. January-August was -3.8% yoy. So far this year, the usual mantra has been that most of the obvious weakness is caused by cars and batteries. But this time around, the foregoing preliminary numbers were ...
Some good-looking fiscal data and the negative forint impact of the ugly Middle East situation
HUNGARY · In Brief · 02 Oct 2024
Starting with the bad news, the forint has just been kicked out of its cosy EURHUF 390-395 range it held for quite a while, to quite unnervingly close to the 400 line, which the MNB obviously will not want to see being crossed, for the potential, and even likely, negative impact on domestic infla...
No surprise once again: MNB base rate reduced to 6.5% today
HUNGARY · In Brief · 24 Sep 2024
We, and honestly everyone else in the analyst community, have proven right in predicting the MNB's September rate action. At today's monthly rate-setting meeting, the Monetary Council decided to reduce the base rate by another 25 bps: Indeed, forecasting this step was not really that difficult, i...
More clarity about PM Orbán’s casting of key policy positions
HUNGARY · Report · 10 Sep 2024
PM Orbán has just revealed a bit more about his plans regarding key policy positions after Mr. Matolcsy’s expected departure from the MNB in March 2025. The other day, he said that one of his government ministers will take over the MNB, and another one will take responsibility for the newly re-me...
Why is the forint weaker early this week?
HUNGARY · In Brief · 10 Sep 2024
The forint spent the past one-month period in the state of spectacular stability, the EURHUF hovering in a narrow range between 390-395, a level which everyone appeared to be satisfied with. But starting last night, it suddenly weakened to EURHUF 396-398, which is no big move but a bit unusual. A...