EM central banks: earlier to hike, earlier to cut

The raft of EM central bank meetings over the past couple of weeks reinforces the view that monetary tightening cycles have now drawn to a close or are very close to doing so, several months earlier than in their DM counterparts. Policymakers in some EM ‘early hikers’ (e.g. Brazil and the Czech Republic) have pushed back against expectations for rate cuts, but it still seems likely that on balance, EMs will be easing monetary policy by the middle of the year.