The Aussie inflation report that printed last night certainly is going to give my thought of no rate cut a lot of problems. Aussie first-quarter CPI rose just 0.3% from the previous quarter.
The forecasts ranged from 0.5-0.6%, so the lower inflation is going to be the straw that stirs the drink for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), who had hung their rate cut hat on this report. Now that it has printed and was very weak, I don’t see how the RBA doesn’t cut rates. So much for me leaving a light on for no cut, eh?
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Japan Turns to Quantitative Easing Once Again!
The Bank of Japan, with instructions from the Japanese Finance Ministry, announced that they would increase their purchases of Japanese government bonds. You know they decided to do this because their multiple implementations of QE, going back 20 years, have all worked so well! NOT!
We all hear the party line that central banks do this to “stimulate growth.” And we know that it “kind of” works… but for only so long. Then you need to do more, right, Big Ben Bernanke?
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