Robin Harding Federal Reserve: Bernanke testimony preview

February 25, 2013 6:46 pm by Robin Harding

All markets want from Ben Bernanke when he testifies before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday is reassurance that he is not getting cold feet about the Fed’s open-ended, $85bn-a-month, QE3 programme of asset purchases. That follows minutes which, while notably vague, showed “many” participants worrying about QE3′s costs and risks.

They are likely to get that reassurance — although maybe not in the most straightforward manner. It is important to note that, when Mr Bernanke testifies, he is speaking for the committee and not for himself. This is the statutory language: Read more

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Posted in Federal Reserve |

Robin Harding Federal Reserve: QE3, exit strategy and the fiscal crisis

February 22, 2013 3:13 pm by Robin Harding

The paper at this year’s US Monetary Policy Forum – where market economists get to present to central bankers – is called “Crunch Time: Fiscal Crisis and the Role of Monetary Policy“. It shows a new wrinkle on US fiscal problems: if there is any kind of debt sustainability crisis it could make the Fed’s exit from easy monetary policy a whole lot more painful.

This is the money chart. Black is the baseline for Fed profit and loss in the coming years. Red is what happens if a fiscal crunch pushes up long-term bond yields (and hence causes losses for the Fed on its portfolio). Read more

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Posted in Federal Reserve |

Robin Harding Is QE3 still open-ended?

February 20, 2013 11:12 pm by Robin Harding

The minutes of the Fed’s January meeting do not suggest that QE3 is about to stop – indeed they reaffirm ongoing asset purchases – but they do make it hard to believe that buying at a pace of $85bn a month really is open-ended.

Compared with the December minutes, which had people wanting to continue QE3 until the end of 2013 or stop well before then, January reads like a deliberate attempt to be less clear about when asset purchases will end. The December discussion came from voting members, January is just participants; December referred to dates, January does not. Read more

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Posted in Federal Reserve |

Claire Jones No excuses for Britain’s dire exports

February 14, 2013 10:55 am by Claire Jones

Brits wanting a holiday in the sun have to stump up a lot more since the pound’s crash during the financial crisis. Even after a partial recovery, the pound remains down almost a fifth in real terms against its trading partners.

On the plus side, exports should be booming. Sadly, they aren’t. There are plenty of excuses explanations, but one stands out: British exporters have too much focus on slow-growing European economies and not enough on the whizzy emerging markets. The killer statistic is that the UK exports more to tiny troubled Ireland than to all the Brics put together. Read more

Posted in Bank of England |

Claire Jones Some forward guidance from the Monetary Policy Committee

February 7, 2013 5:52 pm by Claire Jones

Future BoE governor Mark Carney. Getty Images

Bank of England governor-designate Mark Carney talked a lot today about his fondness for so-called “forward guidance” — where a central bank indicates what is likely to happen to monetary policy way beyond its next policy vote.

The theory is that forward guidance boosts growth by providing more certainty to lenders that they will be able to access cheap cash from the central bank for a long time to come. Convinced of this, banks will reduce borrowing costs and lend more. And, with rates remaining lower for longer, savers will believe there is little point in holding cash and will go splurge. Read more

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Posted in Bank of England |

Tom Burgis Central bankers centre-stage

February 7, 2013 9:35 am by Tom Burgis
This is a Live Blog transcript. Read more

Mark Carney, the incoming governor of the Bank of England, was grilled by MPs and his ECB counterpart Mario Draghi faced awkward questions. By Tom Burgis, Ben Fenton and Lina Saigol in London with contributions from FT correspondents. All times are GMT.  

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Posted in Bank of England, European Central Bank |

Robin Harding Geithner →→→ CFR

February 6, 2013 3:16 pm by Robin Harding

The initial resting place for Timothy Geithner, who stepped down as Treasury secretary two weeks ago, will be at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Per their release today:

Timothy F. Geithner, the 75th Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, will join the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) later this month as a distinguished fellow. Geithner, who was previously a senior fellow at CFR in 2001, will be based at the organization’s headquarters in New York. Read more

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Posted in Uncategorized |

Claire Jones Will the Bank of England ease policy on Thursday?

February 4, 2013 6:39 pm by Claire Jones

Pretty much everyone is expecting the Monetary Policy Committee to do the same thing it has done for the past six votes and stand pat on Thursday, when governor-designate Mark Carney is also due to appear before MPs at the Treasury Select Committee.

But one former deputy governor, Sir John Gieve, thinks there’s a chance that the MPC could vote in favour of easing policy. Read more

Posted in Bank of England |

Claire Jones An honest argument for a dual mandate

February 4, 2013 1:47 pm by Claire Jones

Asked today whether the Treasury should scrap the Bank of England’s 2 per cent inflation target, former policy maker and current central banking guru Charles Goodhart said no. The target, he said, had done little to stop the Monetary Policy Committee easing rates and printing money to stave off an economic and financial meltdown.

Andrew Sentance, another ex rate-setter, agreed. “Inflation targeting hasn’t been the constriction it has been played up to be,” he said this morning.

A cynic would argue that this is because in recent years the BoE has ignored price pressures and instead focused on growth; inflation has been above 2 per cent since December 2009 — rising as high as 5.2 per cent in the autumn of 2011. Read more

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Posted in Bank of England |
From Business blog January 22, 2013

Adam Posen’s attack on the management and culture of the Bank of England may be the strongest yet, but it is by no means the first – and won’t be the last – criticism of a persistent and dismaying lack of robust governance at the UK central bank.

What is astonishing is that despite countless warnings – three independent reviews, several newspaper editorials and sundry MPs’ warnings – the central charge that the governor is over-mighty and under-governed still stands.

 Read more

Posted in Bank of England |
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