European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde, while presenting at an Online Summit organised by the European Business Leaders' Convention, said that we probably have passed the lowest point of the crisis. Additional quotes: Still cautious because of the second wave of infections. Economic recovery will be a complicated matter. Recovery will be incomplete, maybe transformational. We have to use all available policy levers on monetary and fiscal front. This crisis is worse than the 2008-09 financial crisis. The ECB mandate is the same i.e. focus on price stability. The comments...
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank's long-awaited program to lend to small- and medium-sized businesses is about to get off the ground. The Main Street lending facility, which will target companies with up to 15,000 employees, has been difficult to set up but is just about ready, Powell told Princeton University economist and former Fed official Alan Blinder in a webinar interview Friday. "We're days away from making our first loans in Main Street, he said. "We have three facilities that are part of it. They're meant to reach out to different parts of that...
Australias central bank chief said on Thursday that better-than-feared health outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic suggest the countrys economic downturn will likely not be as severe as earlier thought. The remarks come as Australia, with a much lower COVID-19 death toll than other advanced countries, has started resuming normal life barely halfway into the six-month shutdown first flagged by the government. Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor Philip Lowe added that a mid-March stimulus package, including an unlimited quantitative easing programme, to cushion the blow to the...
Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor Philip Lowe is on the wires now, via Reuters, speaking on a panel at FINSIA's "The Regulators" Webinar. "Australian financial system is resilient and is well placed to deal with COVID-19." "Capital and liquidity buffers that exist are available to be drawn upon if required to support the economy." "Important that lenders continue to support the flow of credit to the economy." "The future remains unusually uncertain." "One obvious source of uncertainty is the pace at which the various restrictions are eased. " "Another source of uncertainty is...
Federal Reserve officials in April discussed the next phase of interest rate policy ”convincing markets that rates will stay low for a long time ” but gave no sense than any changes were imminent. Meeting minutes from that session released Wednesday said that œat upcoming meetings the Fed might want to clarify its intentions regarding interest rates. Some officials wanted the central to make its forward guidance more explicit. For example, the Fed could specify a certain level of unemployment or inflation must be achieved before the Fed would consider raising rates from...
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday defended the Trump administrations fiscal response to the coronavirus pandemic and told senators he was willing to consider extending and modifying a payroll loan program for small businesses. In a sometimes testy hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the nearly $3 trillion in coronavirus rescue programs rolled out by the federal government over the past two months were working to support an economy devastated by the novel coronavirus. But the Treasury and Fed chiefs faced tough...
The most important data for the U.S. economy right now are the "medical metrics around the coronavirus pandemic, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Sunday night in broadcast remarks...
At its March monetary policy meeting on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cut its official cash rate (OCR) by 25bps to a record low of 0.50%, as they weighed in the coronavirus outbreak...