Daily Overview of Global Markets & the SEE Region (Wednesday, 10 July, 2019)
HIGHLIGHTS
WORLD ECONOMIC & MARKET DEVELOPMENTS
GLOBAL MARKETS: All eyes today are on the Fed Chairman who will deliver his semi-annual testimony before the House Financial Services Committee at 16:00 CET, as investors anxiously wait to hear whether Chair Jerome Powell will confirm or refute expectations for policy easing at the upcoming 30-31 July FOMC meeting. Meanwhile, according to US money market forwards, the...
Mario Draghi
Missing out on monetary normalisation, Gender Balance Index 2019
Commentary: Missing out on monetary normalisation
By David Marsh in Boston
The European Central Bank’s postponement until at least 2020 of its first post-financial crisis interest rate increase could mean it will miss out a cycle of monetary normalisation. This exposes it to pressures which will weigh on the bank’s next president, who will take over from Mario Draghi when his term ends in October. The biggest risk is that...
US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
Commentary: Powell pivots to patience
By Darrell Delamaide in Washington
US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell wanted to make sure everyone understood that the Fed has changed its stance and that patience is the new byword. Not gradual rises in interest rates, not balanced risks, but patience. The consensus statement following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on January 30 included the word ‘patient’ with regard to any future ‘adjustments’ in...
Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Commentary: US tax cuts must take the blame
By Desmond Lachman in Washington
After Wednesday’s interest rate increase, Fed Chair Jerome Powell is likely to get the blame for the bursting of the stock market bubble. But it was Trump who introduced a large unfunded tax cut that made unavoidable the interest rate increases that have now brought down the stock market. Perhaps Powell’s biggest mistake in accepting the Fed job was to underestimate Trump’s proclivity to take all...
Commentary: ‘Incertitudes allemandes’ back again
By David Marsh in Berlin
German instability is back again. Angela Merkel, presiding over the ruling Christian Democratic Union as chairman since 2000 and as chancellor since 2005, will step down from the party leadership in December. She protests that she will stay the course. A fight is brewing among the (at least) four disparate candidates for the party chair. The odds are shortening on her departing from the chancellorship well before general...