Central Bank of Egypt cuts deposit rate to 19%

The Central Bank of Egypt, at its first monetary policy meeting of the year, cut its benchmark interest rates by 100bps to take the overnight deposit rate to 19.00%. The statement following the decision pointed to two main factors for the cut: a softening in growth at the end of 2025, and an assessment that inflation will continue to moderate. The decision comes after CPI fell to 11.9% in January, down from 12.3% in December, the slowest pace of annual price growth since September last year.

Indian CPI rose to 2.75% y/y in January, an increase from the 1.3% seen in December. Food inflation rose 2.13% y/y in January, while clothing and footwear rose by just under 3%. The latest reading comes after a revision to the series to add additional consumer categories to the index.

US initial jobless claims for the week ending 7 February, fell marginally, declining by 5k from the week prior to reach 227k. Claims data is at present showing little evidence of a significant rise in layoffs, despite several announcements from large companies including Amazon and UPS in recent months.

UK GDP rose 0.1% q/q in the final quarter of 2025, according to provisional estimates, with the outturn slightly below consensus expectations for growth of 0.2%. The breakdown by expenditure showed that the bulk of growth was driven by government and household consumption, rising 0.4% q/q and 0.2% q/q, respectively. In contrast, business investment fell 2.7% q/q. Growth in the latter part of 2025 was likely hampered by speculation around potential tax changes in the November budget, as well as one-off disruptions to auto manufacturing.

Today’s Economic Data and Events

• 17:30 US CPI (Jan). Forecast 2.5% y/y

Fixed Income

• Haven-demand saw US Treasury yields fall on Thursday after selloffs across equities, commodities and crypto assets. Yields on the 2yr fell 5bps to 3.4559% while the 10yr yield declined by 7bps to 4.0981%.
• Mashreq Bank issued an USD 500m perp, priced at 6.25%. FAB issued a 5.5yr GBP450mn bond priced at UKT+75

FX

• EURUSD remained broadly unchanged at 1.1871, GBPUSD declined by 0.04% to 1.3622 and USDJPY fell 0.3% to 152.74.
• In emerging markets, USDINR fell 0.12% to 90.6, while USDTRY rose by a little under 0.1% to 43.6786.

Equities

• US equity markets fell once again on Thursday, with continued market concerns around the impact of AI on a variety of other sectors. The Dow Jones fell 1.3%, the S&P 500 declined by 1.6%, and the NASDAQ dropped 2%.
• Moves in European markets generally followed the tone in the US. The Euro Stoxx 50 fell 0.4%, the FTSE 100 declined by 0.2%, while the DAX was flat. The CAC 40 was the outlier, gaining 0.3%.
• In regional markets the DFM rose 0.4%, the ADX gained 0.4%, and the Tadawul increased by 0.8%.

Commodities

• The prospect of drawn-out Iran nuclear talks saw Brent futures fall 2.7% to 67.52/b while WTI declined by 2.8% to USD 62.84/b.
• Precious metals saw a broad-based sell-off. Gold fell 3.2% to USD 4922.4/oz while silver declined by 10.7% to USD 75.28/oz.