Korea: BOK set to stay on hold in April – Nomura

Analysts at Nomura expect the Bank of Korea (BOK) to leave rates unchanged at 1.50% on 12 April.

Key Quotes

“Does this change your economic view? No, but we acknowledge a risk to our call for a May hike, as our BOK signal index suggests only a very small likelihood of a rate cut in April. We will look to the BOK’s policy statement and revised economic outlook before deciding whether we need to reassess our BOK policy rate call.”

“Strategy implications? With the risk of delay to rate hikes, we have a preference to receive bounces in the 2-5y part of the IRS curve. In the interim, we maintain a small 5s20s steepener, as any delay to rate hikes would affect the front end more.”