Monetary policy
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FILE PHOTO: A worker stands on the scaffolding at a construction site against a backdrop of residential buildings in Huaian, Jiangsu province, China October 18, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
April 19, 2019
BEIJING (Reuters) – China will maintain policy support for the economy, which still faces “downward pressure” and difficulties after better-than-expected first quarter growth, the Communist Party’s top decision-making body said on Friday.
The statement from the politburo came two days after China reported had steady 6.4 percent annual growth in January-March, defying expectations for a further slowdown, as industrial production jumped sharply and consumer demand showed signs of improvement.
“While fully affirming the achievements, we should clearly see that there are still many difficulties and problems in economic operations,” the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing a politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping.
“The external economic environment is generally tightening and the domestic economy is under downward pressure.”
China will implement counter-cyclical adjustments “in a timely and appropriate manner”, while the pro-active fiscal policy will become more forceful and effective, and the prudent monetary policy will be neither too tight nor too loose, it said.
For this year, the government has unveiled tax and fee cuts amounting to 2 trillion yuan ($298.35 billion) to ease burdens on firms, while the central bank has cut banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR) five times since early 2018 to spur lending.
Further policy easing is widely expected.
On Friday, the politburo reiterated that the government will effectively support the private economy and the development of small- and medium-sized firms.Authorities will strike a balance between stabilizing economic growth, promoting reforms, controlling risks and improving people’s livelihoods, the politburo said.
China will push forward structural deleveraging and prevent speculation in the property market, it said.
“We should adhere to the orientation that houses are used for living, not for speculation,” the politburo said, reaffirming a city-based approach in controlling the property sector.
China’s economic growth is expected to slow to a near 30-year low of 6.2 percent this year, a Reuters poll showed last week, as sluggish demand at home and abroad weigh on activity despite a flurry of policy support measures.
(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk and Kevin Yao; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO – Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President, Robert Kaplan, stands on a stage at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution where he is attending an annual monetary policy conference in Stanford, California, U.S., May 4, 2018. REUTERS/Ann Saphir
April 18, 2019
(Reuters) – A top Federal Reserve policymaker on Thursday said he is “getting more confident” in U.S. economic growth this year but still thinks current interest rates are appropriate.
“I’m getting more confident about solid growth this year,” Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. He described the U.S. central bank’s current benchmark overnight lending rate of 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent as “appropriate” and “mildly accommodative.”
Several banks and analysts revised their forecasts for first-quarter U.S. growth higher on Thursday after data showed retail sales surging in March and the number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits falling to the lowest level in nearly 50 years last week.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Editing by Paul Simao)
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FILE PHOTO: Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney arrives for a G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ meeting at the IMF and World Bank’s 2019 Annual Spring Meetings, in Washington, April 12, 2019. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan
April 18, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is starting its search for a new governor of the Bank of England to succeed Mark Carney who is due to step down in January 2020.
Carney has twice extended his term in charge of the British central bank in order to help guide the economy through Brexit.
But he has ruled out a further delay even though Britain’s departure from the European Union remains up in the air.
Finance minister Philip Hammond is hoping that concerns about Brexit will not deter potential applicants.
Following is a summary of possible contenders to run the BoE which oversees the world’s fifth-biggest economy and Britain’s huge finance industry.
ANDREW BAILEY
A former deputy BoE governor, Bailey was tipped by analysts as Carney’s most likely successor. But the delays to the search for the next BoE governor has raised questions about whether finance minister Philip Hammond sees him as the best candidate.
Bailey reached the role of deputy governor at the BoE with a focus on banks before becoming chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, a financial markets regulator.
In his time at the BoE, Bailey helped to steer Britain’s banks through the global financial crisis, enhancing his reputation as a safe pair of hands.
But heading the FCA is fraught with risks. Lawmakers in parliament’s Treasury Committee criticized Bailey for not publishing all of a report into alleged misconduct by bank RBS. Bailey has cited privacy restrictions.
As FCA boss, Bailey sits on important panels at the BoE that oversee banks. Although he has never been interest-rate setter, he once ran the BoE international economic analysis team.
BEN BROADBENT AND DAVE RAMSDEN
Broadbent and Ramsden are deputy governors for monetary policy and for markets and banking respectively.
Broadbent, a former Goldman Sachs economist who trained as a classical pianist, is respected for his economic analysis but has less experience on banking oversight.
Ramsden was the Treasury’s chief economic advisor before joining the BoE.
The two other BoE deputy governors, Jon Cunliffe and Sam Woods, are less likely contenders. Woods focuses mostly on financial regulation while Cunliffe – a former British ambassador to the European Union – would be aged 66 at the start of the term which usually runs for eight years.
ANDY HALDANE
The BoE’s chief economist, Haldane has developed a reputation for floating unconventional ideas, including the possibility that music apps such as Spotify and multiplayer online games might give central bankers just as a good a sense of what is going on in the economy as traditional surveys. In 2012, he praised the anti-capitalist Occupy movement for suggesting new ways to fix the shortcomings of global finance. Haldane has experience of both sides of the BoE, having served as executive director for financial stability, overseeing the risks to the economy from the banking system. But he might be seen as too much of a maverick to take the job of governor.
OUTSIDERS?
The announcement of Carney, the first non-British governor of the BoE in more than three centuries, was a surprise.
But his tenure has been seen as a success for financial diplomacy, and the government is keen to promote what it calls a “global Britain” after the country leaves the European Union.
RAGHURAM RAJAN
Rajan, 56, was governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016, and chief economist at the International Monetary Fund between 2003 and 2006, when he warned that financial innovation could trigger a crisis.
Now a finance professor at Chicago Booth business school, Rajan has just published a book on populist dissatisfaction with markets and the state – touching on some of the underlying issues that drove the Brexit vote in 2016.
Rajan unexpectedly did not seek a renewal of his three-year term at the RBI, having faced hostility from some sections of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP party who disliked his less nationalist stance and brief forays into political territory.
Rajan declined to comment when asked by Reuters last week whether he would consider a return to active policymaking.
A LABOUR PARTY GOVERNOR?
The prospect of the left-wing Labour Party taking power has grown as Prime Minister Theresa May struggles to break the Brexit impasse in parliament.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his would-be finance minister John McDonnell are socialists and have in the past proposed that the BoE should fund investment in infrastructure, a big change from its current focus on inflation.
Former members of Labour’s economic advisory committee included U.S. academic and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and Ann Pettifor, a British economist who is an austerity critic and former BoE rate-setter David Blanchflower.
(Writing by William Schomberg and David Milliken; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
April 18, 2019
(Reuters) – Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them.
1/CENTRAL PLANNING
The 100 years since the Fed’s creation in 1913 is said to be the century of central banking. Well, since the 2008-2009 crisis, we’ve certainly lived through a decade of central banking. But with monetary policy taken to the limit to lift growth and inflation, can central banks do any more?
Of late, some of the economic and business confidence data is giving rise to hopes rate-setters might just be able to hold fire on further action for now. German and Japanese PMIs ticked modestly higher from March, and from China to the United States, the hope is that spring will bring some green shoots on the economic front. Central banks in Japan, Canada and Sweden hold meetings in coming days so we may get some clues on what they are thinking.
ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos and Olli Rehn, widely tipped to succeed ECB Governor Mario Draghi, will also be quizzed on the subject at upcoming speeches, especially since sources tell Reuters “a significant minority” of ECB rate-setters doubt any recovery is underway. Central bankers in Australia and New Zealand have sounded similarly gloomy. A decade of central banking and planning is not over yet
(GRAPHIC: ECB balance sheet – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Hz4sUC)
(GRAPHIC: The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet – https://tmsnrt.rs/2ULcay0)
2/GDP NOW!
The working thesis through the early months of 2019 was that U.S. economic growth would continue to tail off as tailwinds faded from last year’s $1.5 trillion tax cut and headwinds picked up from a weaker global economy, partial federal government shutdown and trade wars. Indeed, that looked to be the case as most economic data through the first quarter fell short of forecasts. As a result, Citigroup’s U.S. economic surprise index came to near the most negative in around two years.
But one closely tracked gauge of quarterly gross domestic product, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow model, has rebounded sharply in recent weeks and may be signaling that the advance reading of first quarter GDP may not be quite so grim.
A month ago, GDPNow estimated an annualized 0.2 percent growth, which would have been the lowest since a one-off GDP contraction in the first 2014 quarter. Now the model forecasts quarterly growth will come in at 2.4 percent. That would not only top current estimates of 1.8 percent but would mean growth actually accelerated from the fourth quarter’s 2.2 percent.
One factor behind the turnaround was a surprise narrowing in the U.S. trade deficit as Chinese imports plunged in the face of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. By some estimates, trade could now contribute as much as one percentage point to first quarter GDP after being a washout in the fourth quarter.
(GRAPHIC: U.S. GDP – in for a surprise? – https://tmsnrt.rs/2VPQsJN)
3/CORNER KICK
As we said above, central banks don’t have much ammunition left in their arsenal. The toolbox is probably lightest at the Bank of Japan.
At the G20 meeting in Washington, BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he was ready to expand monetary stimulus if needed. But he also said he had no plans to change the central bank’s forward guidance, or the message it sends to signal policy intentions to financial markets. To many, that sounded like a man backed into a corner.
Kuroda has a chance to prove otherwise at the upcoming BOJ meeting. Expectations are thin though, given the BOJ’s balance sheet is already bigger than the country’s economy and Japanese financial institutions are suffering immense pain from the prolonged monetary easing.
The world’s No. 3 economy may have contracted in the first quarter, and whether it recovers depends much on first, whether China recovers too and second, on whether the trade conflict between the other two powers sharing the podium reaches a resolution.
(GRAPHIC: BOJ’s bloated balance sheet limits further easing – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DjVE16)
3/TAKING A DIP IN EUROPE
The United States is widely seen as heading into an earnings recession (defined as two straight quarters of negative year-on-year earnings growth) but Europe might, at least for now, escape one.
European firms are expected to deliver their first quarter of negative earnings growth since 2016 – the latest I/B/E/S Refinitiv analysis predicts Q1 earnings to fall 3.4 percent year-on-year. But it expects results to pick up again in Q2.
So despite this quarter’s poor outcome, hopes for a bounce-back could keep equities buoyant. After all, sentiment is already rock bottom – investors surveyed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch named “short European equities” the most crowded trade for the second month running.
The auto sector will be in focus in coming days with a flurry of earnings from Michelin, Continental, Daimler, Peugeot, and Renault. These stocks are particularly sensitive to growth in China and will be watched as the stirrings of a recovery were felt in recent Chinese GDP data .
(GRAPHIC: Earnings chart latest April 17 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Ip8LCj)
5/ RUSSIAN ROULETTE
The past two years have seen an increasingly bitter rift open up between President Donald Trump’s Republican supporters and his Democrat critics over the alleged collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign in the 2016 U.S. election.
That may not be defused even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 400-page report on the subject is unveiled by Atttorney General William Barr. He has already told lawmakers the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
But that is unlikely to stop U.S. politicians from continuing their clamor for sanctions against Russia. As for investors, their appetite for Russian assets has not so far been dented. After plummeting last year, foreign buying of rouble-denominated government bonds has recovered sharply so it remains to be seen whether that bullishness continues.
Meanwhile, Ukraine — the reason behind the original 2014 sanctions on Russia — looks set to elect comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy as president. Could the election of a new leader bring about some rapprochement between Kiev and Moscow? Watch this space.
(GRAPHIC: Foreign investors dipping their toes back in OFZs – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XiDZyC)
(Reporting by Dan Burns in New York, Marius Zaharia in Hong Kong; Sujata Rao, Helen Reid and Tom Arnold in London; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A worker pushes a trolley loaded with goods past a construction site in the central business district (CBD) of Sydney in Australia, March 15, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo
April 18, 2019
By Swati Pandey
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A bumper run in Australian jobs extended to March and more people went looking for work, official data on Thursday showed, a sign the country’s labor market remains strong despite a small uptick in the unemployment rate.
The local dollar jumped about a quarter of U.S. cent to $0.7200 as traders wagered the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will not rush to ease rates even though the broader economy has seemingly lost momentum.
The employment report is being closely watched for clues on monetary policy as the country’s central bank is counting on labor market strength for a long-awaited pick up in wage growth and inflation in the face of a property market downturn.
Thursday’s data showed a total 25,700 new jobs were created in March, surging past expectations for a rise of 12,000.
Encouragingly, all of that increase was led by full-time work with part-time decreasing 22,600.
“A solid set of employment figures, dominated by full-time roles, suggests that households and businesses may have to wait a little longer for rate cuts,” said Callam Pickering APAC economist at global job site Indeed.
“From the perspective of policymakers, particularly the Reserve Bank, this will be viewed as a positive report,” Pickering said.
Australia is creating jobs at a brisk annual pace of 2.4 percent, much faster than the 1.6 percent rise in population.
Even so, the unemployment rate rose to 5.0 percent in March from an eight-year trough of 4.9 percent the previous month as the participation rate climbed to 65.7 percent in a sign more people went looking for work.
While the jobless rate has stayed in a 4.9-5.1 percent band since last September, consumer prices have remained lukewarm for years now.
Worryingly for the RBA, first-quarter data due next week is expected to show core inflation further cooled to 1.7 percent from 1.8 percent in the previous quarter, undershooting its 2-3 percent mid-term target.
The RBA has held the cash rate at an all-time low of 1.50 percent for 2-1/2 years now and earlier this year switched away from its long-held tightening bias to a more neutral stance. On Tuesday, minutes of the central bank’s April meeting showed it believes a cut in interest rates would be appropriate if inflation stayed low and unemployment trended high.
(Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
Source: OANN
A cyclist rides past the Bank of Canada building in Ottawa July 17, 2012. The Bank of Canada left interest rates unchanged on Tuesday, but made clear it was still weighing an eventual move higher, even as other central banks ease monetary policy to cope with damaging economic slowdowns. REUTERS/Chris Wattie (CANADA – Tags: BUSINESS POLITICS)
April 18, 2019
By Mumal Rathore
BENGALURU (Reuters) – The Bank of Canada is expected to hold policy steady for the rest of this year, with calls for the next hike in early 2020 resting on a knife’s edge, a Reuters poll showed, the latest dulling of rate expectations for a major central bank.
Just last month, a majority of economists said the overnight rate would rise to 2.0 percent in the third quarter of this year, followed by another rise next year.
The findings from the April 12-16 poll of over 40 economists brings expectations for the BoC in line with those for the U.S. Federal Reserve and other major central banks, which are now forecast to stay on the sidelines this year.
The Canadian economy has taken a hit from the mandatory production cut of oil – its biggest export – a slowdown in the housing market and wilting business sentiment over worries surrounding the U.S.-China trade war.
“Although the Bank of Canada still sports a directional bias in its forward-looking language, referring to ‘future rate increases’ in the March announcement, this likely reflects the fact that policy rates are still negative in real terms,” noted Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.
“However, this doesn’t preclude a Fed-comparable desire to stand pat given the substantial risks posed by higher interest rates – given a record-high household debt-to-income ratio – along with global economic headwinds and trade uncertainties.”
All economists polled said the BoC will hold rates at 1.75 percent at its April 24 meeting and about 60 percent of them say they will stay there through to the end of this year.
The median forecast shows the central bank will hike in the first quarter of next year to 2.0 percent, but the sample was split. The rates are forecast to stay put after that through to end-2020.
Almost 90 percent of economists who answered an additional question said a rate cut was unlikely by end-2020 as they remain hopeful the economy will muddle through its current rough patch.
“Those that think the softness will continue will point to signs of slowing growth in the U.S. and Europe, declines in global trade volumes, an inversion of the yield curve, and declines in business and consumer confidence,” noted Jean-François Perrault, chief economist at Scotiabank.
“While these factors are acting to hold back growth to some extent, fundamentals remain generally solid and our models continue to suggest that the probability of a recession in Canada is very low.”
The recent rise in oil prices contributed to a Canadian inflation increase to 1.9 percent in March, just below the central bank’s 2 percent target. A separate Reuters poll showed oil prices are expected to rise over the coming year.
While that may help underpin the economy, a major oil and natural resources exporter, the growth outlook was cut in the latest poll.
Gross domestic product (GDP) growth was forecast to average 1.6 percent this year and 1.7 percent next, a downgrade from 1.8 percent predicted for both those years in the January poll.
The median probability of a recession in the next 12 months was 20 percent, and 27.5 percent in the next two years. That compares with a 25 percent probability of a U.S. recession in the next 12 months and 40 percent chance in the next two years.
(Reporting and polling by Mumal Rathore; Editing by Ross Finley and Chris Reese)
Source: OANN
The amount of gold held by Europe-based ETFs hit a record high in the first quarter of 2019, according to a report by the World Gold Council.
European funds now hold 1,121.4 tons of gold.
The WGC pinpoints three primary drivers of European gold investment.
- Loose monetary policy and negative yields. The warning lights have been flashing for some time: the global and European economy is slowing.
- Geopolitical uncertainty. Political uncertainty across the continent is also front and center of investors’ minds.
- Financial market performance and volatility. Over the past three years, European equity market performance has significantly lagged that of other major western markets
Net inflows of gold into European ETFs started in 2016 with a record 281 tons. That year turned out to be the beginning of a long-lasting trend. European funds added 149.7 tons of gold in 2017 and 90.8 tons last year.
Funds in the United Kingdom and Germany saw the biggest growth at the country level.
Special report on how global giants are dealing with precious metals.
UK funds led the way, accounting for about 50% of the total. Brits have dealt with the anxiety of Brexit by hoarding gold. The flow of gold into UK-based ETFs is part of a broader trend. British investors are also stocking up on physical metal. According to a statement by The Royal Mint, the demand for gold bars and gold coins spiked last December as uncertainty about the UK’s exit from the EU grew.
Germans have also been turning to gold as recession fears grow.
Interest rates continue to hover near zero throughout the EU. The European Central Bank never got around to taking any significant steps toward interest rate normalization after the Great Recession. In fact, last month the ECB relaunched a crisis-era bank lending program. The WGC said, “significant rate hikes are unlikely any time soon.”
The ECB’s QE purchases totaled somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.6 trillion euros. What did the EU get for all this stimulus? Not a whole lot. We have highlighted the “successes” of ECB QE. Even with the ECB’s half-hearted attempts at winding down the stimulus, it already looks like Germany – and a lot of other EU countries – is slipping toward an economic downturn. It’s no wonder European investors are turning to gold.
The WGC says it expects demand for gold in European ETFs will remain robust this year.
“Looking ahead, it is likely many of these trends will remain in place and support further growth in this part of the gold market. The Eurozone economy is faltering; a recession looks increasingly probable, as does further monetary easing by the ECB. Investors added another 20 tons in Q1 2019 in their continued search for a safe haven to protect their wealth in the face of these challenges.”
Inflows of gold into ETFs are significant in their effect on the world gold market, pushing overall demand higher.
ETFs are backed by physical gold held by the issuer and are traded on the market like stocks. They allow investors to play gold without having to buy full ounces of gold at spot price. Since their purchase is just a number in a computer, they can trade their investment into another stock or cash pretty much whenever they want, even multiple times on the same day. Many speculative investors appreciate this liquidity.
There are good reasons to invest in ETFs, but they aren’t a substitute for owning physical metal. In an overall investment strategy, SchiffGold recommends buying gold bullion first.
When considering gold-backed ETFs, you should always keep in mind that you don’t actually own the gold. Buying the most common ETFs does not entitle you to any actual amount of the precious metal.
Dr. Nick Begich joins Alex Jones live in studio to break down why the globalists, as they consolidate power into the hands of corporate interests worldwide, fear the individual.
Source: InfoWars
We got more signs that the economy is slowing down this week. And yet pundits and policymakers keep insisting everything is great.
In his latest podcast, Peter Schiff says he thinks people like Donald Trump and Larry Kudlow know deep down that things aren’t that great, but they want to keep kicking the can down the road for political reasons.
US manufacturing remained flat in March after two straight months of declines. It was the first quarterly drop in production since Pres. Trump took office. Economists had expected a slight rise in manufacturing in March.
Factory production dropped at a 1.1% annualized rate in the first quarter.
According to Reuters, “Soft manufacturing and slowing economic growth reflect the ebbing stimulus from a $1.5 trillion tax cut package and supply chain disruptions caused by Washington’s trade war with China.”
Factory employment fell in March for the first time since July 2017.
Industrial production also dropped last month, falling 0.1% and missing Wall Street expectations of a o.1% gain.
Capacity utilization was also off. It was at 79 in February. Analysts expected an improvement to 79.1. Instead, it fell to 78.8.
Peter noted that Larry Kudlow said he doesn’t expect another Federal Reserve interest rate hike in his lifetime. And of course, Trump has actually been calling for more monetary stimulus. Why? Because they know that the economy isn’t really in very good shape and the want to keep the bubble inflated so Trump can get reelected.
“How can Donald Trump be saying on the one hand that we have the greatest economy in the history of the world, on the other hand, we need the same emergency monetary policy we needed in the depths of the Great Recession? That doesn’t make sense. We have the greatest economy, but we need emergency quantitative easing. Well, the reason it makes sense is because Trump knows we don’t have a great economy; he knows we have a great bubble. He knew we had a bubble as a candidate. He criticized the Fed for doing quantitative easing — for inflating the bubble. But now that he owns the bubble, he needs the Fed to do more QE to keep it from popping before the next election.”
Peter said one thing everybody is ignoring is inflation. The conventional wisdom is that there is no inflation. But there is. Federal Reserve money printing is inflation. Just because we haven’t seen it in the government consumer price numbers doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Inflation is all around us – in the stock markets, in the bond markets, in real estate and in a lot of prices.
This is why everybody is so sanguine about interest rates.
“See, the Fed can only keep rates low so long as there’s no inflation threat. So, that’s why initially they’re saying, ‘Well, we’re OK with inflation more than 2%. We’re OK if it’s symmetrical.’ … The reason they keep lowering the bar is because they can’t do anything about it. They have to keep pretending that inflation is not a threat because if they ever admit it’s a threat, what are they going to do? Nothing! They can’t raise interest rates. That is the problem. The reason they had to stop raising interest rates, the reason Larry Kudlow is so confident that we’re never going to have another rate hike, is because he knows the whole economy would implode.”
Simply put, if the Fed brought rates back to 4, 5, or 6% — where they historically have been — the entire house of cards would collapse.
Peter said the Fed will eventually have to raise rates because inflation will spiral out of control in the midst of a recession.
That’s stagflation.
“The Fed is going to have to raise rates to protect the dollar, to prevent high inflation from becoming runaway or hyperinflation. That is the choice the Fed is going to have to make.”
Of course, raising rates and allowing the bubble to deflate will be extremely painful.
“Every time they make the problems bigger by kicking the can down the road, there’s more political motivation to kick it again. Because the worse the problems are, the more painful is the resolution and of course, nobody wants to be blamed. Nobody wants to be the messenger that gets shot full of holes because they deliver the bad news.”
In this podcast, Peter also talks about income taxes and explains why the entire system is unconstitutional.
Gerald Celente hosts and gives his expert analysis on the current trends in the economy as well as actions Trump is taking to keep the economy strong and win 2020.
Source: InfoWars
FILE PHOTO: The euro sign is photographed in front of the former head quarter of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany, April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
April 17, 2019
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Euro zone inflation slowed in March and the core figure dipped, the European Union’s statistics office said on Wednesday, confirming its initial estimates and providing an uncomfortable signal for the European Central Bank (ECB).
Eurostat said prices in the 19-nation currency bloc rose 1.4 percent in March on the year, from a 1.5 percent increase a month earlier, confirming the previous reading.
The ECB targets an inflation rate below, but close to 2.0 percent, and last week raised the prospect of more support for the euro zone in the face of an economic slowdown.
On the month, inflation accelerated to 1.0 percent, as markets had expected, from 0.3 percent in February.
The core indicator watched closely by the ECB for its monetary policy decisions, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, dropped to 1.0 percent in March on the year from 1.2 percent in February. That was the weakest reading since April 2018, Eurostat data showed, confirming earlier estimates.
This can add to the pressure on the ECB as it battles an economic slowdown which threatens to undo years of stimulus, while many of its own rate-setters think the bank’s economic projections are too optimistic.
A narrower inflation indicator that excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco was also confirmed dipping to 0.8 percent from 1.0 percent a month earlier.
Inflation was held back by a slowdown in price rises of food, alcohol and tobacco, which rose 1.8 percent on the year in March after a 2.3 percent rise in February.
Inflation in the services sector, the largest in the euro zone economy, also slowed to 1.1 percent from 1.4 percent in February.
Energy prices were the only major component of the index that accelerated in March, to a rise of 5.3 percent year-on-year from 3.6 percent in February.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)
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FILE PHOTO: Masayoshi Amamiya, a nominee for Bank of Japan deputy governor, attends a confirmation hearing in the lower house of parliament in Tokyo Japan March 5, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo
April 17, 2019
TOKYO (Reuters) – Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Masayoshi Amamiya said on Wednesday the central bank will scrutinize potential risks to the economy, including signs of financial imbalances, in guiding monetary policy.
“One of the factors that led to Japan’s asset-inflated bubble was the fact we kept monetary policy easy even as the economy continued to expand,” Amamiya told parliament, adding that the BOJ will learn a lesson from the experience.
(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
Source: OANN
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