interest rates

The combination of a 50 bp cut in China's required reserve ratios and anticipation that the European finance ministers sign off on the second aid package for Greece has lifted equity markets and most of the non-US dollar currencies.

There are two sets of important developments over the weekend that will influence the global capital markets. The first is in China and the second in Europe.

If you are a retiree, you're not happy these days. Five years ago, you were getting a decent return on your fixed income investments. But since then, the Fed has trashed the fixed income market by reducing interest rates to zero percent for…

The Fed has come out 9-1 in favor of rate easing i.e. capping medium-term treasury rates. The interesting bit is that while the Fed did the exact same thing in August out to two years, this announcement takes permanent zero out to nearly…

Given what we see as a basically hands off policy with regards to the exchange rate when MXN is appreciating, we see more potential upside for MXN compared to, say, BRL, where Brazilian authorities are clearly going to work against further…

Imagine being on the FOMC and in the mainstream paradigm. In 2008 you moved quickly to make sure the US would not become the next Japan. What do you have to show for it, 3 years later?

This week we begin a new topic: functional finance. This will occupy us for the next several blog posts. Today we will lay out Abba Lerner’s approach to policy.

With the Chinese New Year holiday period approaching, it becomes a bit harder to discern PBOC’s policy intentions. It typically adds liquidity aggressively ahead of the holidays, but this year it comes at a time when the central bank is…

It is my view that the ECB is now the only thing between the economy and widespread bank failures, but I also concur that the consequence of this is a permanent outsourcing of the interbank market in Europe to the ECB's balance sheet and,…

To it’s credit, the ECB has been pretty good on the liquidity front all along. I’d give it an A grade for liquidity vs the Fed where I’d give a D grade for liquidity. Back in 2008 the ECB was quick to provide unlimited euro liquidity to its…