monetary policy

By Marc Chandler A discussion of what the ECB is likely to do at Thursday's policy meeting requires an appreciation of its challenges. There are four challenges that the ECB faces in nursing the "weak, fragile and uneven" recovery, as…

The ECB continues to argue that there is no deflation risk in the Eurozone though many people dispute this. The ECB must act, and politicians in the Eurozone must allow it to do so. Treaties be damned.

I thought the podcast below was a good one. Basically, central banks are making it up as they go along. It's not a science. Also see William White on Ultra Easy Monetary Policy and the Law of Unintended Consequences.

The two main drivers of the capital markets today have been the biggest one day loss in the Chinese yuan and new that the preliminary Eurozone February CPI did not tick down as many expected. The headline rate was unchanged at 0.8%, though…

The aim of the above header is to link two names in people’s minds, both of them Italian: Mario Draghi and Matteo Renzi. Naturally the idea is not original, the FT’s Peter Spiegel recently published an entire blog post (Does Renzi owe his…

Expectations of future shortages in quality liquid bonds in US debt markets continue to persist. These shortages however are likely to be more acute for short-term paper. As a percentage of total government debt for example, treasury bills…

Given the difficulty in obtaining reliable data out of China, what other evidence do we have that the nation's economy is actually slowing? Here are four signs that seem to support the "slowdown" thesis.

Canada reported dreadful December retail sales and somewhat stronger than expected price pressures in January. The main take away is that a more dovish line from the central bank when it meets on March 5 is likely avoided.

So far the ECB has not responded to the disinflationary risks building in the euro area. Some Governing Council members dismissed the calls for action from numerous economists, referring to the analysts' reports as the "Anglo-Saxon"…

The Russian economy is barely growing. The Russian central bank has no intention of supporting the ruble. We are also seeing some spillover from the Ukrainian mess.