The Federal Reserve seems to have been caught off-guard by the recent turmoil on the markets. As the Chinese economic growth seems to be slowing down, all of the Western central banks need to re-think their plans, and the Federal Reserve will have to kneel in the dust.
Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,
An Imaginary Bogeyman
What’s a Keynesian monetary quack to do when the economy and markets fail to remain “on message” within a few weeks of grandiose declarations that this time, printing truckloads of money has somehow “worked”, in defiance of centuries of experience, and in blatant violation of sound theory?
With markets in a sharp correction to start 2016, market commentators nevertheless still hold a downside bias for gold. The rationale for this downside has shifted however, from a fear of FED normalization to a fear that deflation and associated asset-capitulation would take gold lower in a "dollar short squeeze", reminiscent of gold's sell off in 2008. With a well-grounded framework for analyzing the gold price, we fear neither rationale; we still view a significant fall from today's level an unlikely outcome, or temporary at best.
EURUSD just broke 80 pips lower instantaneously as it seems a somewhat delayed reaction to US GDP data sparked panic buying of USDollars (despite Fed Funds futures pricing in no more rate hikes in 2016). At 1.0855, EURUSD is testing the ket 50-day moving-average and is back below pre-Draghi levels...
EURUSD back below pre-Draghi levels...
As Rate-Hike odds for 2016 disappear in a puff of fed policy error...
It is safe to say that nobody expected the BOJ stunner announced last night, when Kuroda announced that Japan would become the latest country to unleash negative interest rates, for one simple reason: Kuroda himself said Japan would not adopt negative rates just one week ago! However, a few BIS conference calls since then clearly changed the Japanese central banker's mind and as we wrote, and as those who are just waking up are shocked to learn, negative rates are now a reality in Japan.