Equity sell-off unlikely to derail policy tightening

Despite the recent plunge in equity prices, it looks highly likely that the Fed will raise interest rates again in December and then press ahead with two more rate hikes in the first half of 2019. But a slowdown in the US economy should discourage Fed officials from additional hikes beyond the middle of next year, and eventually prompt them to cut rates in 2020. We expect the ECB to stay the course and bring its net asset purchases to an end in December, and to wait at least until September before raising interest rates. In the UK, an eleventh-hour Brexit deal would pave the way for the Bank of England to raise rates twice next year. However, there is very little prospect of tighter monetary policy in Japan in the coming years.