I think it is mostly symbolic. The changes in economic and inflation outlook will be insignificant, however, that should keep the Euro weak (as it had depreciated in expectation of such measures and renewed appreciation would have further depressed inflation).
We think that the rate cut from the European Central Bank was necessary given that the recent inflation data from the Eurozone has continued to move lower.
To my mind, the Sterling has been generally outperforming most of the majors in 2014 so far.
In the recent years the New Zealand economy has been boosted significantly by the Canterbury earthquake rebuilding effort. Construction activity has also been supported by a robust real estate market; though that impact has waned in recent months.
In my opinion, weather is an excuse and this GDP number indicates that there is a severe slowing in the US economy. My personal view is that this is not a one up incident, but it is really where the economy is trading right now.
In this particular case, it looks more like a short term issue. Canada's trade balance tends to fluctuate between a billion dollar deficit or surplus.
After the surprisingly strong data in the first quarter, bolstered by rush demand and business investment, Citi economists expect Q2 growth to contract by 4.3% at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, and then rebound 2.9% in the third quarter of the year.
The ECB has made it pretty clear that they are reasonably patient regarding inflation rates reaching target levels. At the moment they are not concerned about the slow speed of raising inflation.
The Pound has been one of the best performing G-10 currencies recently. I believe the outperformance is here to stay and the underlining drivers of it are still firmly in place.
The U.S. labor market is on the right path to closing the gap on the long-term average participation rates. I believe that the key difficulty has been the increases in wages, which have been running below inflation until recently.
Every year gold prices move through a seasonal cycle. At the beginning of the year, in January, a lot of fresh investor capital comes into the markets and drives up asset prices.
According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), Britain's economy has grown 0.9% in the first quarter of the year, making it the fastest rate of growth since the second quarter of 2010. What do really these figures mean and do you think that country's economic recovery is still in its infancy?To some extent it is. It
Switzerland do have some concerns regarding its housing market as the mortgage lending has grown at a faster pace than the economy, and between 2008 and 2013 apartment prices increased by a quarter. Do you think that the central bank is paying enough attention to this matter?I believe the value of property in Switzerland is related to the safe-haven effect
In my opinion, it has certainly helped to facilitate the Bank of England desire to keep interest rates at low levels for same time.
From our point of view (the Macquarie FIC strategy team), the Reserve Bank of Australia is increasingly pointing out things that they have done to support country's economy.
"Abenomics" is comprised of three major policies, monetary, fiscal, and structural.
The inflation rate is obviously very low at the moment and much weaker than the ECB is heading for, with Eurozone CPI falling to 0.5%, according to the data published yesterday.
We do not see a big impact on the Eurozone for now unless there is a serious energy supply shock.
Whenever there are major losses to innocent players in any industry, there is a call for regulation.
The unseasonably cold weather in the U.S. over the winter months has led to poor economic figures, which in turn have pushed interest rates lower and weakened the Dollar.
I believe that the local economic data, while being uneven, is taking a more positive tone, with inflation pressure heading higher.
In my opinion, there is a possibility that Canada's GDP could weaken in the first quarter of this year as it has been a difficult winter in many parts of the country and we did have few significant storms.
In my point of view, the main lesson from the crisis is that in the future we should try to prevent taxpayers from saving banks.
I think we will have to get used to some disappointments, and we got an early flavour of that with the latest flash PMIs from France and Germany, which both missed expectations.