Stocks, EM currencies in red, in the center of the central bank meeting

Jul 21 (Reuters) – Emerging market stocks and currencies fall on Friday as the dollar strengthens ahead of major central banks’ weekly interest rate decisions.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index was down 0.3% as of 10:41 ET.

The MSCI Emerging Markets index fell by 1.7%.

In the focus of the markets – meeting of the central banks of Europe, Japan and the US next week.

The South African rand fell 0.4% to 18.01 to the dollar after the central bank decided to suspend interest rate hikes for the first time since November 2021.

“We’ve hit the South African interest rate cap, so I wouldn’t expect them to raise rates again unless something really bad happens, like the rand jumps to 20 or above against the dollar, or there’s new inflationary pressure,” CEEMEA’s Marek Drimal said.

The Turkish lira fell 0.8% to 26.94 to the dollar after the central bank decided to raise its key rate by 250 basis points to 17.5%.

“Investors prefer to wait for the details of the quantitative tightening program and how Turkey’s central bank intends to influence the country’s economy and inflation dynamics through these measures,” Drymal added.

The original message in English is available at the code: (Ankika Biswas in Bangalore)