US debt ceiling looms without agreement on healthcare plan September 29, 2013 THE US congress is yet to reach an agreement over the looming debt ceiling, which will prevent the government from borrowing any more at midnight tonight. Politicians are yet to find an agreement that would avoid the debt ceiling, with a dispute over the funding of President Barack Obama’s flagship healthcare policy still raging. Without [...]
New York Report: Wall St awaits US government funding news September 29, 2013 WITH a possible US government shutdown days away, Wall Street still has not come down with a critical case of fiscal fever despite forecasts that failure to resolve the federal budget standoff could be catastrophic. The benchmark S&P 500 is up more than three per cent for September, which has traditionally been described as the [...]
Evans says Fed can’t provide as stimulus as it would like while unemployment remains high September 27, 2013 The Federal Reserve's resident mega dove Charles Evans has said that the Fed can't provide as much stimulus as it wants. Evans see unemployment too high, and inflation too low. Evans topped that off by saying that the Fed sees itself as non-partisan and non-political. Afraid I'm not buying it.
Fed’s Evans says forward guidance has helped to boost growth September 27, 2013 The Fed's Charles Evans has said that forward guidance has helped to boost GDP growth while the central bank was unable to to cut short term interest rates. Evans believes that unemployment remains unacceptably high while headwinds continue to contribute to a weak economy. He said that the use of monetary policy to combat financial [...]
Pound moves above $1.61 as Carney says no case for more QE September 27, 2013 Bank of England governor Mark Carney has said there's no case for more quantitative easing, in an interview with the Yorkshire Post today. But my personal view is, given the recovery has strengthened and broadened, I don’t see a case for quantitative easing and I have not supported it. (Yorkshire Post) That's provided support for [...]
Fed’s Stein would have backed QE taper in September meeting September 26, 2013 FED BOARD member Jeremy Stein suggested yesterday that he would have been happy if the tapering of QE had begun in September. In a Frankfurt speech, Stein said: “I would have been comfortable with the FOMC’s beginning to taper its asset purchases at the September meeting.” Stein added that the most important element of tapering [...]
Kocherlakota says Fed must do whatever it takes for growth – including more stimulus September 26, 2013 The Fed's Narayana Kocherlakota has repeated the phrase so popular among bankers – that they must do "whatever it takes". To Kocherlakota, that means that more stimulus may be warranted while inflation remains low. But he also thinks that the Fed may have to accept above target inflation in order to fix the labour market. [...]
Fed’s Stein suggests tapering rule to add clarity to central bank decisions September 26, 2013 Federal Reserve board member Jeremy Stein has a nifty solution to the lack of clarity over the central bank's decisions to begin tapering. That's fedspeak for reducing the rate of expansion of the monetary base. He's proposed that asset purchases be scaled back by a fixed amount for each 10 basis point drop in the [...]
US government shutdown could cause tapering confusion September 26, 2013 US Federal Reserve calculations over the beginning of tapering – a scaling back of its asset purchases program – could be hampered by fiscal squabbles over the Federal debt ceiling. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has already referred to the lack of clarity as a hindrance on monetary policy decisions: The extent of restrictive fiscal policies [...]
Fed’s Lacker warns that forward guidance on rates may depress growth September 26, 2013 The Federal Reserve's Jeffrey Lacker has said that forward guidance may threaten economic growth – as central banks assure markets that rates will stay low, this may itself dampen expectations of future growth. In practice, he says that separating forward guidance on rates from asset purchases has proven difficult. Credibility requires consistency, over time, between [...]