January 14, 2019
It’s been a hard day’s night for stocks. Share prices overnight fell by 1.4% in Hong Kong, 0.9% in India, 0.7% in China, 0.5% in Taiwan and South Korea, and 0.4% in Indonesia. European equities are down 1.1% in Italy and Spain, 1.0% in Switzerland, 0.9% in Greece and Great Britain, 0.7% in France and […] Read Article
January 18, 2019
Central Banks: Monetary policy meetings in Norway, Euroland, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea. BOJ Governor Kuroda and ECB President Draghi hold press conferences after their central bank meetings. Bank of Japan also publishes new quarterly Outlook Report. Holidays and Special Events: U.S. Martin Luther King holiday on Monday. World Economic Forum in Switzerland runs from […] Read Article
January 17, 2019
The weaker global inflationary outlook has reduced lessened the risk of imported inflation and capital outflows that might caused by tighter monetary policy in the United States and other industrialized economies. The last central bank interest rate changes in Turkey, Indonesia, and South Africa had been upward, but officials at all of them held policy […] Read Article
January 7, 2019
The ISM’s non-manufacturing U.S. purchasing managers index declined 3.1 points in December to a 5-month low of 57.6. This slowdown in positive growth was led by lessening production/sales, whose subindex retraced 5.3 points. The report also revealed slower employment conditions and less inflation intensity. The IHS service sector PMI fell by 2.2 points last month […] Read Article
January 11, 2019
Central Banks: Monetary policy reviews scheduled in Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa and South Korea. The Federal Reserve Beige Book on regional economic conditions will be published, and Chairman Powell testifies in Congress. The K.C. and Minneapolis Fed Presidents also speak publicly. The European Central Bank releases results of latest survey of professional forecasters. Holidays and […] More
January 11, 2019
Investors perceive many trouble spots, and none are getting resolved. Talks between President Trump and Congressional democrats have broken down, raising expectations that a border emergency situation will be declared. The federal government shutdown is now the longest on record. Fed Vice Chairman Clarida and Chicago Fed President Evans are the latest to signal fewer, […] More
January 10, 2019
Compared to volatile share prices and sovereign debt yields, key dollar relationships like EUR/USD and USD/JYP have been pretty stable lately, and neither of those pairs is trading in historically extreme territory. The euro just passed its 20th birthday. Over the four quadrants of this lifespan, the common European currency had an average value of […] More
January 10, 2019
FOMC minutes yesterday revealed less clarity about the future path of the fed funds target. Some committee members had been hesitant to endorse December’s rate hike, the ninth of this tightening cycle, although a consensus persists that a few more increase are probable in the future. Ultimately, policy will be reactive to the data, and […] More
January 9, 2019
Canadian monetary policy remains in a tightening cycle intended to converge on rate neutrality. There have already been five 25-basis point hikes of the overnight rate target beginning in July 2017 and with follow-up moves in September 2017, then January, July and October of 2018. The big decline in the global price of oil resulted […] More
January 9, 2019
Equity markets continued to rally after U.S.-Sino lower-level trade talks extended to a third day. Although no details about possible progress were revealed, investors took the unexpected third day of negotiations as a good sign that the dispute can be settled by March and avert a re-escalation of mutual big tariffs by the two countries […] More
January 8, 2019
Consumer confidence in Japan ended 2018 at a 25-month low. A 1.9% plunge in German industrial production in November has raised the risk of a second consecutive quarterly contraction of real GDP in Europe’s largest economy. GDP fell 0.2% in the third quarter, and industrial output posted back-to-back month-on-month declines of 0.8% in October and […] More
January 7, 2019
The Bank of Israel Monetary Committee reviewed its monetary policy stance for the first time since a 15-basis point interest rate hike announced in late November to 0.25%. That increase had been the first change 3-3/4 years and reversed a cut of same size in February 2015, which had culminated a 310-basis point easing cycle […] More
January 7, 2019
The dollar began the first full week of 2018 edging moderately lower against most other major currencies. The political stalemate over funding a southern border wall is adding to investor uneasiness as the president claims he doesn’t need congregational approval to fund building a wall and could alternatively just declare an immigration emergency. Equity markets […] More
January 4, 2019
Central Banks: Monetary policy meetings in Canada, Turkey, Poland, Israel, Serbia, Romania and Peru. FOMC minutes and Bank of Canada Monetary Policy Report will be published. Clarida, Harker, and Bostic are some of the Fed officials scheduled to speak publicly. So is Bank of Canada Governor Poloz. Purchasing Manager Surveys Being Released: Covered economic sectors […] More
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