Is the central bank announcing a 100 billion yuan MLF operation to cut interest rates?

　　Is the central bank "draining" 100 billion interest rate cuts coming?

　　MLF fell below 3%, the central bank lowered the target rate; the market generally expects that the LPR will be reduced in April, and mortgages will be affected

　　On April 15, at the same time as the targeted RRR cut, the central bank announced the implementation of a medium-term lending facility (MLF) operation of 100 billion yuan, and the winning bid rate was 2.95%, which was 20 basis points lower than the previous time.

　　Previously, the reverse repo rate fell by 20 basis points on March 30, and there will be a new offer on LPR (loan market quoted interest rate) on April 20. The market generally expects that LPR quotes will be lowered synchronously with a high probability in April. Among them, LPR over 5 years is the wind vane of most mortgages, and "rate cuts have stabilized", industry sources said.

　The MLF interest rate fell below 3% for the first time in 3 years

　　The RRR cut and "interest rate cut" are in place on the same day. According to the announcement of the Central Bank on April 15, from the same day, the Central Bank will lower the deposit reserve ratio by 1 percentage point for rural financial institutions and urban commercial banks operating only in provincial-level administrative regions. Percentage points. On the 15th, the first deposit reserve ratio adjustment for the implementation of the policy released about 200 billion yuan of long-term funds. At the same time, the central bank carried out 100 billion yuan of MLF operations and won the bid interest rate of 2.95%, which was 20 basis points lower than the previous period.

　　The RRR cut was announced in early April, and it was no surprise that the "rate cut" came. On March 30, the central bank lowered the open market operating rate (7-day reverse repo rate) by 20 basis points. The industry generally expects that both the MLF interest rate and LPR in April will be lowered synchronously with a high probability. It is worth mentioning that this is the second time the MLF interest rate has been lowered since China's economy entered the epidemic cycle this year, and it is also the first time in three years that the MLF interest rate has fallen below 3%.

　　Talking about the necessity of lowering the MLF interest rate, many industry insiders said that as the basic disk of China's employment, the majority of SMEs are facing unprecedented challenges in this epidemic. In this case, the policy of reducing the burden on the enterprise is the key, through "interest rate cuts" to unblock the transmission of monetary policy mechanisms, reduce the actual financing costs, and guide financial institutions to increase their support for the real economy, especially small and micro, private enterprises. On the one hand, the urgency becomes more prominent.

　Next week, the mortgage interest rate is likely to fall simultaneously

　　At one end of the monetary policy transmission chain, the actual interest rate related to the public is LPR.

　　LPR is quoted on the 20th of each month, the latest one will be next week. Wen Bin, chief researcher of China Minsheng Bank, said that from the perspective of the LPR quotation mechanism and previous changes, it is expected that the 1-year LPR quotation on April 20 will be in line with the MLF rate reduction by 20 basis points, and the interest rate will be reduced from the current 4.05% to 3.85 %.

　　Since most mortgages have a maturity period of more than 5 years, LPR over 5 years is regarded as a vane for mortgage interest rates. "In order to maintain the stability and continuity of the real estate market regulation policy, LPR over 5 years may fall by 10 basis points to 4.65%," Wen Bin said. Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Real Estate, also expects that there will be a high probability that the price of LPR will decline in April. Among them, LPR over 5 years may be reduced by 10 to 20 basis points.

　　According to Zhang Dawei's calculation, based on a 1 million mortgage and equal principal and interest repayment for 30 years, for every 5 years of LPR decline by 10 basis points, the monthly payment will be reduced by about 60 yuan. If the LPR over the 5-year period in April is reduced by 10 basis points to 4.65%, the monthly supply will be reduced from 5126.47 yuan to 5156.37 yuan.

　　Since the reform in August last year, LPR offers over 5 years have only been lowered by 2 times, each time the decline is 5 basis points. This time the market is generally expected to increase the decline, will it trigger a skyrocketing property market? "Personally I don't think so. The era of investing in real estate speculation is over. On the one hand, because the overall population structure has changed, young people's purchasing demand is declining, and the vacant houses of the elderly are increasing. On the other hand, housing is not speculated, preventing excessive emphasis on housing prices. Financial attributes make housing prices squeeze the real economy. So the property market will not change by 20 basis points because of lowering interest rates. "Pan Helin, executive dean of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said.

　　He also reminded that although the property market will not skyrocket, sufficient liquidity, lower capital costs and currency easing expectations are always a good thing for "stabilizing house prices", and real estate regulation policies still need to be alert to house prices rising too fast.

　　■ Viewpoint

　　CPI drop supports further "rate cuts"

　　At present, the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic is still raging overseas. Because of concerns about the impact of the epidemic on the economy, since the beginning of March, at least 20 central banks in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Egypt have announced interest rate cuts. Many countries have also made asset purchases simultaneously.

　　Judging from domestic factors that affect whether interest rates are cut, inflation has always been a major constraint, but in March the CPI had fallen back to the "4 era." Wen Bin said that China's CPI growth rate fell rapidly in March, and inflation showed a downward turning point, which is conducive to a more flexible and moderate monetary policy. In the next stage, monetary policy regulation should shift from quantitative tools to price tools. On the one hand, by continuing to lower policy interest rates, the overall downward trend of the national debt yield curve will be driven, driving corporate bond issuance interest rates to fall, reducing corporate direct financing costs On the other hand, the benchmark interest rate of deposits should be lowered in a timely and appropriate manner to release the potential of LPR reform and guide loan interest rates to continue to decline. Effectively reduce the financing costs of the real economy from two channels, direct financing and indirect financing.

　　Wang Qing, chief macro analyst of Dongfang Jincheng, believes that considering that the current policy interest rate, including the MLF interest rate, is still much higher than the zero interest rate level, the future CPI year-on-year growth rate is expected to trend downward, and the rate cut cycle will be extended to the end of the year, April After that, the MLF interest rate still has room for reduction by about 30 basis points.

　　Beijing News reporter Cheng Weimiao