February 8, 2010
The second week of February got off to a fairly quiet start. The weekend meeting in Canada of G-7 finance ministers and central bankers did not release a formal statement. Europeans attending that meeting made reassuring comments about the Greek government’s commitment to reducing its deficit. U.S. Super Bowl won Sunday by New Orleans Saints [...] Read Article
February 5, 2010
The G-7 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers that starts today in northern Canada may break with the tradition of releasing a formal statement of common agreement and intention. Central banks meeting in Sweden, Korea, and Chile are not likely to change interest rates. The Bank of England releases a quarterly inflation report, which [...] Read Article
February 4, 2010
The Czech National Bank as expected and by a unanimous 6-0 vote made no changes in monetary policy today. A statement from monetary officials projects headline and policy-relevant consumer price inflation near its 2% target during the coming 1-2 years. After dropping 4.3% last year, real GDP is expected to advance 1.5% this year and [...] Read Article
February 8, 2010
Faster growth in the United States than in either Euroland or Japan is hard-wired into analyst medium-term projections. Results from a monthly survey published in the latest issue of The Economist projects that GDP in the United States will rise 3.0% this year but just 1.4% in Euroland and 1.5% in Japan. It’s only early [...] Read Article
February 7, 2010
The Canadian hosts of the weekend meeting of G-7 central bankers and finance ministers relayed a mixed message of global economic progress, much unfinished work, reduced G-7 responsibility, but a continuing informal role for the group in promoting a candid discourse among its members. 02/06/10Iqaluit The G-20 is now the group responsible for coordinating foreign exchange and [...] More
February 5, 2010
Although world economic prospects are not shabby in their aggregate, the gap between dynamic emerging markets and schlerotic advanced ones keeps widening. Australia’s quarterly Monetary Policy Statement, published today, asserts that “the world economy is now widely expected to grow by around 4% in each of the next couple of years,” yet the risk aversion [...] More
February 5, 2010
Canada added 43K jobs last month, almost three times more than expected. Over the past three months, jobs climbed at a monthly pace of 33.3K, which is analogous to a rising trend of 258K per month in the U.S. labor market. Two-thirds of the net Canadian employment gains in January came from young workers. [...] More
February 5, 2010
On continuing worry over budget deficits in Europe and the fragility of the global recovery, stocks fell 3.3% in Hong Kong, 2.9% in Indonesia, 2.7% in India, 3.2% in Taiwan, 2.3% in Australia, 2.9% in Japan and 2.0% in China. In Europe, the Paris Cac got whacked 2.2%, and the British Ftse and German Dax [...] More
February 4, 2010
Global financial moments are in the grip of an “enough already” psychology. Risk aversion has spiked because of fear that fiscal deficits have gone beyond the point of safe return and that much higher inflation is inevitable. European peripheral nations like Greece, Spain and Ireland have been the main object of the panic, but concern [...] More
February 4, 2010
Bank Indonesia’s key interest rate, which has been at 6.5% since a 25-basis point cut in August, was again left unchanged as expected. A statement on the BI website projects a steadily improving domestic economy and in-target CPI inflation this year, that is between 4% and 6%. Real GDP rose 4.3% between 3Q08 and 3Q09, [...] More
February 4, 2010
The ECB Governing Council left its rate structure unchanged and deferred new details on the gradual phasing-out of unconventional liquidity enhancements to the March press conference. Since May 2009, the refinancing rate has been at 1.0% and flanked by a 0.25% deposit rate and a 1.75% marginal lending rate. Overnight money, aka the Eonia rate, [...] More
February 4, 2010
The Bank of England Kept the British Bank rate at 0.5%, its level for the past eleven months. Agreed to maintain the stock of asset purchases funded by central bank reserve creation unchanged at Gbp 200 billion. Such was last raised in November by Gbp 25 billion, and those operations were completed in January. Said that “further [asset] [...] More
February 4, 2010
The dollar, yen and JGB yields are up. Stocks and commodities are lower. Markets await several central bank policy decisions and fret about long-term fiscal problems in Greece and other countries. Several pieces of weak data were reported overnight as well. The yen rose 0.3% against a dollar that otherwise shows gains of 1.6% against the [...] More
February 3, 2010
The finance ministers and central bank chiefs of the Group of Seven (U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada) hold their first scheduled meeting in five months on February 5-6 amid continuing high anxiety about the global economy and feelings that the this group’s role has been marginalized by the G-20, which also includes [...] More
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