The Central Bank between Scylla and Haribda, whether Lokdown will be in Moscow, a new Bitcoin record and the Chinese “Male State”

On the eve of the Friday meeting at the Headquarters, the Central Bank was before a difficult choice

On Friday, the Board of Directors of the Central Bank will have a difficult decision at the rate. The fact that it will be increased for the sixth time in a row, no one has doubts: the only question is in the level of increase. Inflation, which continues to accelerate (today Rosstat reported on 7.8% in annual terms in the last week), pushes the regulator to more decisive measures - an increase by at least 0.5 percentage points. At the same time, the introduction of “non -working days” in early November threatens to slow down the restoration of the economy even more.

• Reuters, the last consensus prognosis, published on Monday, gave a decent advantage to the forecast to increase the rate of 50 basic points, to 7.25%: 21 out of 30 analysts spoke out in his favor. But today's Bloomberg survey has already shown a greater scatter: 22 analysts leaned towards an increase of 25 points, 19 - by 50 points, and only one believes that the increase will reach 75 points. “The Central Bank turned out to be between Scylla and Haribda,” said Natalia Orlova, chief economist of Alfa Bank, Bloomberg.
• On the one hand, the acceleration of inflation pushes the regulator to a decisive increase in the rate. According to the results of September, inflation increased to 7.4% in annual terms, in a week by October 11 - to 7.63%. Tonight, Rosstat published data for a week by October 18: 0.22% in weekly expression and about 7.8% in an annual one. The MMI telegram channel, founded by the current director of the Department of Monetary Policy of the Central Bank, Kirill Tremasov, called these numbers “disaster” and changed his forecast for an increase of +50 b.p. “If not for Lokdown, we would put it on +100 BP,” the authors of the channel added.
• The acceleration of inflation creates a not quite clear situation before the Central Bank meeting, said Dmitry Kulikov, director of a group of sovereign ratings and macroeconomic analysis of Acre. According to him, additionally reacting to the temporary component of inflation may not be optimal, because the lag of the influence of monetary policy on the economy is six months or more. But if there is reason to believe that this surge will noticeably affect inflationary expectations, then the Central Bank will have to be reacted, and quite hard, adds kulikov. He, like most of the Bell economists, predicts that by the end of the year the key rate will be 7–7.25%.
• On the other hand, the regime of non -working days approved by Vladimir Putin from October 30 to November 7 will exert additional pressure on economic growth. Elvira Nabiullina has already noted that the increase in the rate by 250 points since the beginning of the year has slowed the restoration of the economy, Bloomberg recalls. Unlike previous meetings, this time the Central Bank on the eve of the board of directors did not give clear signals about their intentions, the agency adds.
• The introduction of a serious locaun at the national level - for example, similar to the one that the authorities in Moscow are now discussing - can seriously slow down the rate of increase in the rate, Bloomberg said economist Sova Capital Artem Zagrin. At the same time, while the Central Bank’s rate is still lower than the inflation level, which indicates the preservation of the stimulating effect, said Mikhail Vasiliev, chief analyst of the Sovcombank, in a conversation with The Bell.
• The importance of the upcoming meeting is added by the fact that it will be supportive: according to its results, the Central Bank will update its medium -term forecast. In July, the regulator already increased the inflation forecast in July from 4.7–5.2% to 5.7–6.2%. It is practically guaranteed that it will do this now - the range will be increased by at least 1 pp, says Igor Rapokhin, senior strategist in the Sbercib Investment Research.

What am I to me?

From the Friday solution of the Central Bank and the comments of Elvira Nabiullina, we will learn what the Central Bank is now more concerned - the increase in prices or the danger of slowing down the economy. The head of the Central Bank will probably have to answer the questions about the risk of stagflation in Russia, which are asking due to this diomam. We talked about this problem in detail here .

MONEY

Bitcoin ETF has worked

The most rainbow forecasts about the growth of cryptocurrencies against the backdrop of the start of trading by the first ETF tied to bitcoin futures (we talked about it in detail here ), continue to make excuses. Today, Bitcoin first struck $ 65,000, reaching a new historical maximum. At the time of sending the newsletter, it cost $ 66,650 (+5% over the past day). Cryptoentiasts rejoice. “Infinity halls are filled with echoing sobs by those who sold their bitcoins,” the head of the consulting company Microstrategy Michael Silor quotes , for example, Cointelegraph. Optimists, the number of which is growing faster, count on continuing growth in the coming months due to the continuation of the influx of institutional investors to the crypta market. The most daring of the optimists are counting on the ceiling of $ 200-300 thousand per bitcoin.

Will Lokdown be in Moscow

The real Lockdown in Moscow at the time of “non -working days” on October 30 - November 7 seems more and more likely. Last night, Forbes got acquainted with the project of the decree of Sergey Sobyanin about the full closure (including for vaccinated and ill) for this period of the entire sphere of services, except for food stores, pharmacies and food delivery. Today, Kommersant confirmed these intentions of officials - but its sources clarified that the hard Lockdown will be introduced only if the incidence next week exceeds the indicators of the current one. In the last 7 days, numbers are growing confidently . Business representatives interviewed by Kommersant hope that the most stringent measures will be able to avoid and at least vaccinated citizens will allow restaurants and shopping centers.

PRACTICE

Chinese "male state"

The “male state” and its battles with brands prohibited this week in Russia is not only a Russian phenomenon. International brands are faced with no less cheat from the activists-conservatives in China, where promotion on social networks and messengers means even more than in Russia, says Quartz. For example, Mercedes during the next advertising campaign on Weibo (Chinese Twitter) shot in one of the videos the popular shell girl Jan Lee-and immediately received thousands of comments from Chinese antifeminists who hate Yang for jokes about the privileges of men. The company did not delete the video, but closed it only for subscribers. This is not the first such story with Jan Lee: In the spring, Intel took a video with her, where the girl joked that "Intel requirements for her computers is even higher than my requirements for my boyfriend." After users overwhelmed the company with offended comments, Intel removed the advertisement.

Return to the Gold Standard in Venesuel

The heading of "The next stage in the fall of Venezuela into a financial abyss." Local Bolivars have long ceased to play the role of a payment vehicle in the country, except for non -cash purchases in the state supply system. You can buy something real in Karakas for several years only for dollars. Other currencies go in the border provinces: in the west of the country - Colombian peso, in the south - the Brazilian Real Madrid. But the east of the country, where the gold mines are located, stepped further than all - there people returned at least in the 17th century, and gold is the main payment tool, and the price tags are written in grams, Bloomberg says . The night in the hotel will cost half a gram of precious metal, lunch for two in a Chinese restaurant - a quarter, a haircut - one eighth.