Ben Bernanke

The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee met today. As expected, the Fed Funds rate stayed at zero percent. Most Fed watchers, however, wanted more clarity on the Fed's quantitative easing timetable, which the Fed laid out clearly. But…

Yesterday, Ben Bernanke said that the Fed would start to wind down it's QE program sometime this summer as I indicated early last week I believed the timetable would be. Market pundits believe these remarks triggered a sell-off in global…

As Merrill's junk bond index yield crossed the historical low of 5% on Thursday, some senior Fed officials are clearly becoming uneasy. Corporate credit markets are entering bubble territory (see discussion) and up until recently very…

Long-term interest rates are a series of future short-term rates. That necessarily means that an interest-rate targetting central bank exerts the dominant influence not just on the short end in its currency area, but across the yield curve.…

I was on BNN this afternoon talking to presenter Howard Green and The Economist's Ryan Avent about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony before congress today. You can read Bernanke's prepared remarks here and watch the video clip here.…

Akira Amrai, Japan's economic minister, announced: "It will be important to show our mettle and see the Nikkei reach the 13,000 mark by the end of the fiscal year (March 31)... We want to continue taking (new) steps to help stock prices…

Just a quick note here - I was on Capital Account last night talking about what I expect to happen politically next year. I spelled out some of it in my last post on the US election and the Fiscal Cliff. But here is a more complete view…

I was on BNN's headline yesterday (video here) talking to Howard Green and Brian Milner about the IMF and China. Fed Chairman Bernanke's defense of QE and zero rates was a big piece of that conversation. I believe Bernanke's defense is…

The following is the text of a speech Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered at a high-level seminar sponsored by the International Monetary Fund on Sunday. Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here. This morning I will first…