Global rate-cut juggernaut is struggling to start

Central banks cagey about joining the global interest-rate cutting cycle may reveal themselves this week with a quartet of decisions in advanced economies.

Days after the Federal Reserve pared back projections for US monetary easing this year, policymakers from the UK to Australia are likely to signal that they're still not convinced enough about disinflation to start lowering borrowing costs themselves. Such outcomes would reaffirm how June, originally penciled in as a month-long opening ceremony to a series of global rate cuts, may increasingly turn out to be a widespread display of hesitancy.

While Canada did deliver the first such move of the Group of Seven on June 5, the European Central Bank's reduction in borrowing costs a day later, accompanied by a higher inflation projection, showed limited enthusiasm for further easing.

At the Bank of England on Thursday, a looming election and some lingering price pressures are adding to the case to wait at least until August before cutting rates.