Central banks took centre stage in Q3, as the Bank of England (BoE) and Federal Reserve (Fed) followed the European Central Bank (ECB) in delivering their first interest-rate cuts in over four years. Markets welcomed the moves with Wall Street and global stock benchmarks hitting fresh all-time highs. The Japanese Central Bank also raised interest rates, but quickly had to backtrack on further proposed increases following the turbulence prompted by the ’Yen carry trade’ phenomenon on 5 August, which caused the biggest correction in Japanese equities since 1987.
