Monetary data out of China released over the past week have bolstered investor sentiment. Chinese CPI (consumer price index) continued to fall in December 2011, coming in at a 15-month low of 4.1% y-o-y (compared with the 6.5% high registered in June), while producer price inflation was subdued at just 1.7%. Such disinflation raises hope… [Read more]
One thing we can be certain about is that the recent trend towards easier monetary policy in both developed and emerging markets has much further to run in 2012. On Thursday, December 8, the European Central Bank cut rates by 25bps for the second time in as many months, and we expect that continued macroeconomic… [Read more]
Sharp exchange rate depreciation and rising inflationary pressures have been exacerbated by an unpredictable and often contradictory monetary policy by the Central Bank of Kenya. Can recent – admittedly half-hearted – measures to tighten policy prevent further shilling depreciation and reverse the inflationary trend? This week Mark Schaltuper speaks to Sub-Saharan Africa analyst, Matt Searle,… [Read more]
Despite the ending of the US Federal Reserve’s second round of quantitative easing (‘QE2’), BMI believes that there will be few ill effects, and that monetary policy will remain very loose for several quarters to come. We do not see Fed rate hikes until late 2012, and the risks are that hikes are put off… [Read more]
Mark Schaltuper, Head of Europe analysis at Business Monitor International, is joined by Justin Patrie, Head of Country Risk and Financial Markets, and Jean-Paul Pigat, Head of Middle East and North Africa analysis, to identify some of the key sources of risk to the global economy.
Although equities sold off in the wake of US Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments to the International Monetary Conference in Atlanta, my colleagues and I see little evidence of any change to the Fed’s overall outlook. Bernanke reiterated the FOMC’s expectations that higher headline inflation would prove a transient phenomenon; that the labour market was… [Read more]
There are big question marks over the current policy advocated by the Turkish central bank, which despite stellar economic growth chose to cut interest rates to stem the flow of ‘hot money’. With consumer credit growing at over 40% y-o-y in late May, and inflation beginning to rear its head, we ask Chris Graham, Europe… [Read more]
