2016

US and global economic growth is slowing. And this has caught the Fed out given its rate hike in December. The question, now, therefore is whether the Fed continues to hike in the face of this slowing, given the election looming in…

The minutes from the Federal Reserve Board's last meeting have come out and they are dovish. While on the one hand, we should praise the Fed for showing it is data-dependent as it has professed to be, on the other hand the abrupt change in…

The US economy - while still far from recession - is still downshifting. At the same time, the Federal Reserve - while less hawkish than in December - is still in tightening mode. This combination still makes recession a reasonable worst…

Recent data releases related to the Eurozone have been disappointing. This column argues that momentum from the long-delayed 2014-15 recovery is faltering because the Eurozone economy is affected, with a lag, by the US slowdown. The…

A destabilized Europe adversely impacts the UK within or without the EU. The UK is tied to Europe in ways that leaving the EU will not sever. Ironically, the UK may find it has less sovereignty if it leaves the EU than within it.

The Fed began to tighten monetary policy in May 2013, when it announced its intention to taper large scale asset purchases. Despite Fed chair Janet Yellen’s recognition in recent testimony before Congress that financial conditions had…

By Frances Coppola originally posted at Coppola Comment Japan has just introduced negative rates on reserves, following the example of the Riksbank, the Danish National Bank, the ECB and the Swiss National Bank. The Bank of Japan has…

The US economy is not in a recession right now and the latest numbers on US GDP confirm this view. And while the headline growth number was weak, the consumer spending and personal income numbers are supportive of 2%ish growth into 2016.…

While the US economy has decelerated enough since mid-2015 to put me on recession watch, it has not reached the point of recession. Moreover, the data do not indicate a recession is in the offing in the near-term. Rather, a combination of…

About a month ago, I wrote a post on how market contagion would happen due to deteriorating credit conditions in energy high yield. And while this doesn’t necessarily lead to recession or financial crisis, it has already meant a real…