monetary policy

Two years ago I developed a thesis about the negative effect of the Federal Reserve's interest rate policies on bank balance sheets based on my understanding about the history of zero rates in Japan. For bank bond investors, this should be…

For most market watchers, it shouldn't be a surprise that easy money has an (intended) effect on markets in increasing risk appetite as 'risk-free' returns diminish. This cycle is no different. A number of today's articles point to a…

The economy remains in solid shape, with exports, IP, retail sales all holding up well despite the sharper US slowdown. GDP rose 4.6% y/y in Q1, and is tracking at a similar rate for Q2. Manufacturing PMI rose to 55.7 in June from 54.3 in…

Whatever can be said for and against Barclays and Bob Diamond, the story is in danger of exhausting itself at the wrong link in the chain. It has sidelined BubbleTV's around-the-clock coverage of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg's dog walker has…

People’s Bank of China today cut the 1-year lending rate by 31 bp to 6% and the 1-year deposit rate by 25 bp to 3%. It also widened the allowable discount that commercial banks can offer on loans from 20% to 30%. This gives the PBOC rate…

The real solution has nothing to do with the Fed because the constraints are demand side and not supply side. But people will continue to exhort the Fed to do more and so they will do more.

Links from the past couple of days featuring articles on price stability, mobile competition and the European crisis and much more.

The big news in the US today was the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee's decision to extend its simultaneous purchase of longer-dated Treasuries and sale of shorter-dated ones. This effort, dubbed Operation Twist, was set to expire at…

I normally don't post at the weekend these days but I came across two links that I wanted to comment on today. The first is from an article in German daily Die Welt about the situation in Greece. While the article's tone takes a fairly…

The big news yesterday was that Ben Bernanke did not back up Janet Yellen's dovish commentary from the night before. Fed Chair Bernanke did say that the Fed was prepared to use unconventional measures to maintain an accommodative stance.…