Central Bank

In line with market expectations, the Swedish central bank has kept to -0.5% the reference rate, announcing at the same time an increase in the program of ‘quantitative easing purchases’ in order to prevent an appreciation of the crown that would discharge the ‘long-awaited goal of a resurgence of inflation.

The Stockholm interventions in the field of monetary policy are repeated in recent years, to react to a situation that is growing at such a pace as to risk overheating, while inflation remains well below the target set by the central bank at 2%.

The board of the European Central Bank left to stand the cost of money: the main rate thus remains at a record low of 0.00%, the rate on bank deposits to -0.40% and the marginal lending facility at 0.25%. "They will remain at these levels or lower for a long time, certainly beyond the end of our plan of purchases in 2017," says the president of the ECB, Mario Draghi that no plans at present the dell’helicopter money hypothesis: "Before all, there are technical and legal difficulties, but the truth is that we have never discussed it. "

Standard & Poor’s announced that he had confirmed its judgment on the merits of Japan’s sovereign credit issuer, ‘A +’ long-term and ‘A-1’ short on, with prospects that remain stable.

In a note dedicated to today’s decision the agency estimates that the gross domestic product per capita will remain in a range 32.000- $ 35,000 per year until the close of the fiscal year 2019, ie until 31 March 2020.

The director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, has intervened yesterday in "strong support" of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy, the subject in recent days of heavy criticism of the German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble. Although hardly the differences can be ironed out – the minister has long been opposed to the "excessive liquidity" created by the measures of the ECB and the low interest rate policy – the face-to-face responds wing probably need to tone it down, who recently taken by the virulent characteristics of the establishment and of the German media.

Standard & Poor’s economists said they trimmed their growth projections for the eurozone economy to 1.5% this year (versus 1.8% previously) and to 1.6% in 2017.

As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee (Fed) kept official rates at their current levels. Despite inflationary pressure building, the Fed lowered its projections for the pace of future rate […]

The decision to keep rates on hold by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) has saved the market from shock as the Fed Fund Futures market indicated only a very small […]

The SNB is clearly in a reactive stance rather than taking a proactive strategy. As we had expected, the SNB held its policy rates unchanged (Sight deposit rate -0.75% & 3month Libor -0.25% to -0.75%) while not tinkering with tightening banks threshold exemptions on negative rates.