• Next week’s OPEC+ meeting will be crucial in determining the efficacy of Tuesday’s announcement
• It’s most likely that OPEC+ will stick with its existing plan to proceed with output increases next week, but Saudi Arabia may push to scale back the plan

Keep an eye and ear out for expected OPEC+ responses in the days ahead. RBC saying Saudi may want to scale back the output hike would be a very aggressive response. If they do it’ll be couched in terms of expected diminished demand due to renewed COVID-19 outbreaks, and associated restrictions, especially in Europe. Still, dialling back output in the wake of the SPR release would be a huge slap in the face for the US.

• The US State Department is inviting 110 participants. Invitees do not include Russia nor China.
• Its a virtual event on December 9 and 10

• The Committee agreed it remains appropriate to continue reducing monetary stimulus so as to maintain price stability and support maximum sustainable employment 

• sees official cash rate at 0.94% in March 2022 (previously 0.86%)
• at 2.14% in December 2022 (pvs 1.62%)
• at 2.3% in March 2023 (pvs 1.77%)
• at 2.61% in December 2024

Sees annual CPI 3.3% by December 2022 (pvs 2.2%)

More from the Bank’s communications:

• says headline CPI inflation is expected to measure above 5 percent in the near term before returning towards the 2 percent midpoint over the next two years.
• says immediate relative price shocks risk generating more generalised price rises
• capacity pressures have continued to tighten
• broad range of economic indicators highlight that the New Zealand economy continues to perform above its current potential.
• household spending and business investment will be dampened in the near-term by ongoing covid-19 health uncertainties
• says recent nationwide health-related lockdown and restrictions in Auckland resulted in a sharp contraction in economic activity
• says capacity pressures have continued to tighten

Governor Orr’s news conference is coming up at 0200 GMT.

After the knee-jerk dip in the kiwi$ on the widely-expected announcement of a 25bp hike NZD/USD is down a few points

• says release of 70 mln-80 mln bbls smaller than what the market has been pricing in
• release is worth less than $2/bbl, significantly less than $8/bbl sell-off that occurred since late October
• Brent prices also priced in excessive concerns over EU oil demand from covid-19 wave

•  India is looking to bar most private cryptocurrencies when it introduces a new bill to regulate virtual currencies in the winter session of Parliament, the government said late on Tuesday.
• The government will allow only certain cryptocurrencies to promote the underlying technology and its uses, according to a legislative agenda for the winter session that is set to start later this month.