IT’S A HOLD FOR NOW FOR THE MPC, TRACING TRADE TALKS FOR PATH AHEAD

Economists often defer to the quote by Keynes, ‘When my information changes, I alter my conclusions’, and Friday evening turned out to be one such case.

- AASTHA GUDWANI

After a low CPI inflation of 0.25% year-on-year for October, a 25-basis-point cut on 5 December looked pretty certain. After all, not only did the October CPI inflation print surprise again to the downside, but November CPI inflation is also tracking below 1%, with FY25-26 CPI inflation averaging at 2.1% year-on-year (our estimate vs RBI's 2.6% year-on-year forecast as of October 2025). With incoming data continuing to undershoot expectations, there is a strong case to be made for FY26-27 CPI inflation to average below 4% (as is our base case). As of 12 November, we thought it couldn’t get better than this; what else does an inflation-targeting central bank need? We had thus firmed up our 5 December rate cut call; after all, there is ‘space’ for a policy rate cut—we believed the governor referred to it when he had said, “The current macroeconomic conditions and the outlook has opened up policy space for further supporting growth”.