Business

The economy was supposed to fire on all cylinders in 2015. Sufficient time had passed for the often-mentioned lags in monetary and fiscal policy to finally work their way through the system according to many pundits inside and outside the Fed. Surely the economy would be kick-started by: three rounds of quantitative easing and forward guidance; a record Federal Reserve balance sheet; and an unprecedented increase in federal debt from $9.99 trillion in 2008 to $18.63 trillion in 2015, a jump of 86%.

"Hands Up... Don't Nuke"?

Source: Investors.com

It’s nearly that time again.

On the heels of December’s “big disappointment” wherein Mario Draghi cut the depo rate by a “measly” 10 bps and extended PSPP by an underwhelming six months, the ECB meets again next week, and this time around, expectations are low.

Despite the fact that markets have descended into outright turmoil, the ECB “is very unlikely to change its QE dynamics or cut the deposit rate at the upcoming meeting,” Barlcays says. “The earliest QE tweak opportunity for the ECB is the March meeting, if at all.”

Submitted by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

Well, well: who would have believed it. First the Bank for International Settlements comes out with a paper that links credit booms to the boom-bust business cycle, then Britain's Adam Smith Institute publishes a paper by Anthony Evans that recommends the Bank of England should ditch its powers over monetary policy and move towards free banking.

Earlier this week, before first JPM and then Wells Fargo revealed that not all is well when it comes to bank energy loan exposure, a small Tulsa-based lender, BOK Financial, said that its fourth-quarter earnings would miss analysts’ expectations because its loan-loss provisions would be higher than expected as a result of a single unidentified energy-industry borrower. This is what the bank said: