Monthly Archives: September 2024
Federal Reserve has never been this ‘confused’ about neutral rate
Federal Reserve decided to cut rate by an supersized 0.5 percentage point. The decision finally ended the weeks-long market debate of whether the central bank would cut 25 or 50 basis points. One important thing, though, didn't reach the headline: The Fed has never been this "confused" about where the natural rate should be.
Fed projects plan for front-loaded monetary easing, kicks off with 50 bps cut
The Federal Reserve lowered its fed fund rate target by 50 basis points to the range of 4.75 - 5%, with governor Michelle Bowman dissented the decision in favor of a smaller a quarter percentage point cut.
US Retail sales up just 0.1%, still beats expectations
Retail sales in the US increased just 0.05% on a monthly basis in August, down from the outsized 1.15% growth in July but still beats market expectation of -0.2%
Why Canada’s unemployment rate is rising so rapidly?
Canada's labor market has cooled down rapidly this year. Unemployment rate rose to 6.6% in August. The major issue is that the not enough job are created to digest the explosive population growth over the last few years and this integration problem is growing larger every month.
ECB cuts rate to 3.5% as it scales down growth forecast
The European Central Bank reduced the deposit facility rate, its policy interest rate anchor, by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.5%, as the central bank slightly lowered its economic growth forecast.
Interviews
Interview with Paul Romer on large scale Covid testing – Transcript
Edited transcript of our interview with Paul Romer, on why the US urgently to scale up testing for Covid-19 and why he thinks the covid-crisis amounts an intellectual failure