New York Times (March 21)
“The failures of Silicon Valley Bank and three other lenders over the past 11 days” have “put the Fed in a difficult position as it prepares to deliver on Wednesday one of the most consequential decisions on interest rates of the Jay Powell era.” In addition to tightening rates to curb inflation while somehow avoiding a recession, the “banking crisis hands the central bank a third crucial challenge: how to steer the banking sector out of the predicament and restore confidence in the sector.”
Tags: Banking crisis, Consequential, Decisions, Failures, Fed, Inflation, Interest rates, Powell, Predicament, Recession, SVB
New York Times (March 8)
“It seems even the most bullish on Wall Street now get the message: The Federal Reserve is prepared to raise interest rates until it feels it’s sufficiently beaten back inflation — even if those moves cool off the job market and send the economy into recession.” It will now clearly be “higher for longer.”
Tags: Bullish, Economy, Fed, Higher for longer, Inflation, Interest rates, Job market, Recession, Wall Street
Bloomberg (February 1)
“Shaky property markets across much of the world pose another risk to the global economy as higher interest rates erode household finances and threaten to exacerbate falling prices.” From the U.S. to China, Australia and New Zealand, the housing slide could “threaten to undermine consumer confidence and weigh on household spending.” Moreover, “investment too could take a hit as developers scale back projects in response to falling prices, waning demand and higher borrowing costs.”
Tags: Australia, China, Consumer confidence, Demand, Developers, Falling prices, Global economy, Household spending, Interest rates, Investment, New Zealand, Property markets, Risk, Shaky, U.S.
Financial Times (January 21)
“In a country where companies have resisted raising pay and the workforce has refrained from aggressive salary demands for most of the past three decades, Fast Retailing’s move is a watershed for the government and the Bank of Japan’s battle to lift the economy out of deflation.” Should the approach gain momentum, “the ramifications could be far-reaching,” potentially leading to “a virtuous cycle of rising wages, consumption and prices” that “would allow Japan to finally move away from the negative interest rates and ultra-loose monetary policies.”
Tags: BOJ, Consumption, Deflation, Demands, Economy, Fast Retailing, Interest rates, Japan, Prices, Raising pay, Rising wages, Salary, Ultra-loose, Virtuous cycle, Watershed, Workforce
Wall Street Journal (January 15)
“Despite signs that inflation has started to recede, economists still expect higher interest rates to push the U.S. economy into a recession in the coming year…. On average, business and academic economists polled by the Journal put the probability of a recession in the next 12 months at 61%, little changed from 63% in October’s survey.”
Tags: Academic, Business, Economists, Economy, Inflation, Interest rates, Recede, Recession, Survey, U.S.
Reuters (December 16)
“The euro zone will soon have to pay for a decade of European Central Bank largesse. Rising interest rates are turning the ECB’s portfolio of bonds acquired since 2014 into a money-losing machine. The question of how those losses are shared could become a major source of tension between member states.”
Tags: 2014, Bonds, ECB, Euro zone, Interest rates, Largesse, Losses, Money-losing, Portfolio, Rising
BBC (November 3)
“The Bank of England has warned the UK is facing its longest recession since records began, as it raised interest rates by the most in 33 years,” indicating that “the UK would face a ‘very challenging’ two-year slump with unemployment nearly doubling by 2025.” The BoE’s forecast paints “a picture of a painful economic period, with the UK performing worse than the US and the Eurozone.”
Tags: 2025, BOE, Challenging, Doubling, Forecast, Interest rates, Longest, Painful, Recession, Records, Slump, U.S., UK, Unemployment, Warned, Worse
Forbes (October 18)
“Home builder confidence plunged for a tenth straight month in October as rising interest rates continued to weaken housing demand—prompting economists to warn an unexpected rise in new home sales last month may be short-lived and prices may be on the brink of collapse.”
Tags: Confidence, Economists, Home builder, Home sales, Housing demand, Interest rates, October, Plunged, Rising, Weaken
Marketwatch (September 20)
“The number of millionaires in the world is set to nearly double by 2026, despite rising interest rates, looming recession fears and a recent plunge in net worth for some of the world’s wealthiest people.” All told, the number of millionaires “is expected to jump 40% and reach 87.5 million over the next five years.”
Tags: 2026, 87.5 million, Double, Fears, Interest rates, Millionaires, Net worth, Plunge, Recession, Wealthiest, World
Bloomberg (July 27)
In unscripted remarks, Fed Chair Jerome Powell mentioned interest rates are at a “neutral level,” which is shorthand for “consistent with monetary policy being neither contractionary nor expansionary.” If rates really “are already at neutral. This would improve the chances of the Fed being able to soft-land the economy, thereby reducing inflation with limited damage to livelihoods and without triggering unsettling financial instability.”
Tags: Contractionary, Economy, Expansionary, Fed Chair, Inflation, Instability, Interest rates, Livelihoods, Monetary policy, Neutral level, Powell, Unscripted
