Eurozone: 2017 Spells More Trouble

Lior Alkalay - INO.com Contributor


The year 2017 is just around the corner and it seems that more troubles are brewing for the Eurozone. The region faces a deadly combination of a premature ECB taper, Fed tightening and more political uncertainty. Together, those factors could disrupt the already fragile Eurozone recovery.

ECB Tapers While Fed Tightens

Mario Draghi, the ECB President, so far has proved (and more than once) his ability to stabilize the Eurozone economy and delicately navigate monetary policy. But, in the latest ECB rate decision, which was also the last for 2016, Mario Draghi may have slipped up and acted a bit too hastily. Draghi declared that the ECB would reduce its monthly bond purchases from the current pace of €80 billion a month to €60 billion, beginning in April 2017. Despite constant denials from the ECB, there is simply no other way to interpret Draghi’s declaration but as a tapering of the ECB’s Quantitative Easing program. And, in the world of monetary policy, especially ultra-loose monetary policy, less stimulus equals tightening.

The ECB is effectively rolling back part of the brakes it has used to curb volatility in the Eurozone debt market. When the Greek crisis loomed, the ECB used QE to curb volatility. Likewise, when the Spanish banking crisis erupted and, as of late, with Brexit and the Italian banking crises, the ECB quickly responded. The ECB’s massive QE program helped restrain the shocks to the system. Continue reading "Eurozone: 2017 Spells More Trouble"

FOMC: Not Enough Inflation, Folks

By: Gary Tanashian of biiwii.com

Not enough inflation.  That’s what the Fed is saying yet again.

FOMC Statement

“Inflation has continued to run below the Committee’s 2 percent longer-run objective, partly reflecting earlier declines in energy prices and in prices of non-energy imports. Market-based measures of inflation compensation remain low; most survey-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations are little changed, on balance, in recent months”

The problem is, that like their innovative friends at the BoJ, which apparently thinks it is going to now engineer the Japanese yield curve into an inflationary environment, the US Fed is too heavily involved in the Treasury market.  So I ask you if just maybe the signals they are looking for in bonds are all screwed up by their very presence in bonds, 24/7 and 365 since 2008?  Hello Op/Twist… Continue reading "FOMC: Not Enough Inflation, Folks"

Top Five Reasons Why the Fed Won't Raise Rates This Month

George Yacik - INO.com Contributor - Fed & Interest Rates


Eric Rosengren, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, singlehandedly spooked the financial markets last Friday when he commented that “a reasonable case can be made” for the Fed to start raising interest rates soon, which traders and investors interpreted to mean as early as next week’s FOMC monetary policy meeting.

“If we want to ensure that we remain at full employment, gradual tightening is likely to be appropriate,” Rosengren said. “A failure to continue on the path of gradual removal of accommodation could shorten, rather than lengthen, the duration of this recovery.”

While I certainly don’t have any issue with what Rosengren said – I think the Fed should have started raising rates two years ago – I’m a little puzzled what exactly he said that put the markets to flight. He didn’t seem to say anything that other Fed officials, including Janet Yellen, hadn’t also said periodically recently, plus he didn’t offer any imminent schedule for raising rates. Yet that was apparently enough to get stock and bond traders to bail. Continue reading "Top Five Reasons Why the Fed Won't Raise Rates This Month"

Same Old, Same Old From The Fed

George Yacik - INO.com Contributor - Fed & Interest Rates


If we’re to believe the financial press, there is at least a 50-50 chance the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its next meeting on September 20-21. I’ll believe it when it actually happens – but not a minute before then.

The Wall Street Journal story on the release of the minutes of the Fed’s July 26-27 meeting last week, written by its senior Fed watcher Jon Hilsenrath, said the Fed announcement “suggested a rate increase is a possibility as early as September, but that the Fed won’t commit to moving until a stronger consensus can be reached about the outlook for growth, hiring and inflation.”

But haven’t we heard that before? All the Fed did was provide more of the same “let’s wait and see what happens before we do anything” prevarications.

“Members generally agreed that, before taking another step in removing monetary accommodation, it was prudent to accumulate more data in order to gauge the underlying momentum in the labor market and economic activity,” the Fed minutes actually said. “Members judged it appropriate to continue to leave their policy options open and maintain the flexibility to adjust the stance of policy based on incoming information.”

Sound familiar? Continue reading "Same Old, Same Old From The Fed"

BoE Easing Will Be Short-Lived

Lior Alkalay - INO.com Contributor - Forex


The UK economy is sending mixed signals of resilient performance and negative sentiment. The latest PMI readings, both in services and manufacturing, plunged below 50, signaling a contraction. Consumer confidence took a nosedive to -12 in July from a -1 reading just a month before. And in the real estate sector, the latest survey of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors of estate agents showed that only 23% of the participants expected housing prices to rise in the next twelve months.

The Bank of England, at its August meeting, responded with sweeping measures to ease monetary conditions. The BoE cut the benchmark interest rate by 25 bps to 0.25%, eased capital requirements for UK banks which will free up £150 billion of liquidity, and the “crown jewel” – a new round of £60 billion in Quantitative Easing, bringing the QE total to £435 billion.

Nevertheless, Key data released in the UK this week suggests that the overall economy is rather resilient, with unemployment holding at 4.9% and core inflation falling only moderately, from 1.4% to 1.3% year-on-year.

So where is UK economy heading? Continue reading "BoE Easing Will Be Short-Lived"