monetary policy

The US dollar continued to weaken for the seventh consecutive day, with the dollar index hitting its lowest level since August 2008, ahead of the today’s FOMC meeting. In our view the Fed is likely to reaffirm its ultra-accommodative…

Brazil current account deficit came in at a wider than expected -$5.7 bln in March, but was fully covered by FDI totaling $6.8 bln that month. On a 12-month rolling basis, FDI was $60.4 bln vs. a current account gap of -$49.8 bln, pushing…

The Fed chairman is now crafting the Fed's public image just as politicians do. The press conference is a part of that pubic relations campaign. What should we expect then?

Whatever thunder the FOMC meeting usually has is being stolen this week by the first of Bernanke's press conference tomorrow. In fairness, the FOMC's statement is unlikely to change substantively from the mid-March statement. The press…

The press is reporting that China plans to set up new investment funds that will put some of its $3 trln in foreign reserves to work in energy and precious metals. The PBOC is also reportedly studying a proposal to set up some sort of…

Fred Sheehan argues that it is unlikely that Ben Bernanke will raise rates. He says either the market or a successor will do so. He adds that there are several similarities between current trends and those in 1994, a year when many…

The claims about “unsustainable deficits” gained new urgency this week as S&P warned that it was downgrading US federal government debt from stable to negative (see here for recent debate). This appeared to be a blatantly political…

Developments in EM over the past couple of weeks suggest to us that EM policy-makers are finally starting to “get it” with regards to inflation and a strong currency. This is a welcome, if somewhat tardy shift. In recent months, EM…

This was the first 25 bp move in the current cycle and was less than expected, as market expectations had been for 50 bp earlier this month but swung more towards 25 bp this past week on more dovish signals from officials. Of 58 analysts…

We are seeing divergent inflation paths in Brazil and Mexico, and today’s mid-April data underscored this point.