Daily Archives: February 18, 2010

Simone Baribeau Fed raises discount rate

February 18, 2010 9:40 pm by Simone Baribeau

And finally – the Fed increases a rate. Of course, it’s the discount rate not the federal funds rate, and Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, and others have been quite clear that raising the discount rate is not tightening monetary policy.

“Like the closure of a number of extraordinary credit programs earlier this month, these changes are intended as a further normalization of the Federal Reserve’s lending facilities,” the release said, echoeing written comments from Fed chairman Ben Bernanke last week. “The modifications are not expected to lead to tighter financial conditions for households and businesses and do not signal any change in the outlook for the economy or for monetary policy, which remains about as it was at the January meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).” Read more

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Posted in Federal Reserve |

Argentina: cenbank-govt collaboration explicit

February 18, 2010 7:02 pm by Emma Saunders

Argentina’s expected co-operation with the government has been confirmed explicitly by the central bank president and the economy ministry. Bank president Mercedes Marco del Pont told reporters that the Banco Central will co-ordinate its policies with the country’s Economy Ministry, while economy minister Amado Boudou announced the formation of a new economic council, which will group officials from both institutions.

Focus at the central bank will be on company output rather than inflation, said Ms Marco del Pont: “We want to focus on price stability but from a different, non-orthodox view, from the supply side.” Annual inflation is running at 32.1 per cent, according to a report by Graciela Bevacqua, the former head of the consumer price department at the national statistics institute. Read more

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Posted in Bank of Argentina |

Petition: ‘Economists for wage subsidies’

February 18, 2010 6:49 pm by Emma Saunders

Economists in the US, have signed a petition for a hiring tax-credit… so civilised. Brad De Long, professor of economics at UC Berkeley (and well-known blogger) has posted a draft letter from a bevy of reputable economists (including Joseph Stiglitz and Mark Zandi) asking Congress to implement “additional emergency policy measures to jump-start job creation.” Their preferred measure – a tax credit.

A well-designed temporary and incremental hiring tax credit is a cost-effective way to create jobs, and could work well in the current environment. At a time when GDP is beginning to rise and demand is starting to return, private firms are likely to respond to such a tax incentive by hiring sooner and more aggressively than they otherwise would have done. Read more

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Gold prices rise in spite of IMF sale

February 18, 2010 5:13 pm by Emma Saunders

Traders are reporting interest from Asian banks in gold on sale from the IMF, says Reuters. Read more

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Ralph Atkins ECB whodunnit?

February 18, 2010 2:52 pm by Ralph Atkins

Know anybody who had to borrow €3bn suddenly over the weekend? A surge in overnight emergency lending by the European Central Bank has become a talking point in financial markets. Use of its marginal lending facility, which incurs a penal interest rate, jumped at the end of last week and stayed above €3bn on Monday or Tuesday. Was a eurozone bank in trouble? Or was the urgent need for extra liquidity just due to a technical hitch, perhaps related to the start of a new ECB monthly lending cycle?

In the event, it may have been more technicalities than trauma. Use of the facility slumped to just €52m overnight from Wednesday. Whoever need the money appears to have turned to the latest ECB regular weekly offer of liquidity instead, at which banks’ demands continue to be met in full. But minds are not totally at ease. “It’s difficult to say for sure whether this was a genuine funding issue for some banks or one particular bank, or just some adverse liquidity management,” says Nick Matthews, European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland. Read more

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Posted in European Central Bank |

Canadian inflation rises to target

February 18, 2010 2:23 pm by Emma Saunders

Consumer price inflation in Canada rose sharply to 1.9 per cent in the 12 months to January, taking the rate to the midpoint of the bank’s 1-3 per cent target range. The annual rate in December was 1.3 per cent.

The increase, the highest since November 2008, is not worrying the bank, however, and it is not likely to trigger interest rate rises before Q3. Analysts had expected a rise to 1.8 per cent. Read more

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Economics news headlines

February 18, 2010 1:58 pm by Emma Saunders

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Posted in Uncategorized |

Russia probably bought >$2bn

February 18, 2010 1:34 pm by Emma Saunders

Russia’s central bank probably bought more than $2bn in foreign currency today to stall the ruble’s advance to the strongest level against its currency basket in almost 14 months, forex trading managers told Bloomberg. The rouble fell below 34.90 against the dollar-euro basket, breaking Bank Rossii’s floating export-friendly target band of 35 to 38. The currency remained within the 26 to 41 band the bank pledged to defend in January. Bank Rossii does not comment on daily or weekly interventions.

Related stories: Russian forex intervention likely, Feb 17 Read more

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Posted in Uncategorized |

IMF votes to release €200m to Latvia

February 18, 2010 1:23 pm by Emma Saunders

The International Monetary Fund voted yesterday to release €200.3m to Latvia, the third installment of a €1.7bn credit line approved in December 2008. The IMF has already transferred about €1bn during the program, which was also extended by nine months until the end of 2011. An EC transfer of about €500m is expected to follow in about mid-March.

“The Latvian authorities are to be commended for their strengthened program implementation, which yielded better-than- expected fiscal performance in 2009 and helped improve confidence,” Takatoshi Kato, deputy managing director of the fund, told Bloomberg. Latvian legislators have passed spending cuts and revenue increases of about 500m lati ($966.7m) in its 2010 budget to meet the loan’s terms. Read more

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Posted in Uncategorized |

Pound hit as UK borrowing soars

February 18, 2010 12:35 pm by Daniel Pimlott

Sterling fell today as it was revealed that the government was forced to borrow last month as tax receipts fell sharply.

Net borrowing was more than £9bn higher in January than a year earlier, as the government faced a deficit of £4.3bn compared with a £5.3bn surplus in January 2009. January is a crucial month for taxation, and this is the first year to record a deficit in the month since at least 1993. Read more

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