Tag Archive | "Associated Press"

Federal Reserve Not Likely To Increase Interest Rates Soon

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According to a recent news story in Associated Press, It is highly unlikely that Federal Reserve Bank will change the key interest rates any time soon. Since the interest rates are currently at historic low for some time now and practically this is as low as Fed can keep them to kick start the jammed US economy. Despite the faint signs of improvement in economic activity, Fed is not likely to touch the rates at least not for next two quarters.

After spending more than a year in deep recession, US economy finally started to grow in the last quarter. The rate of growth is very minimal and no one knows if the growth can sustain itself over next few quarters or not. So far the economy is running on essential life support system provided by federal government.  It is yet to be seen how it performs without oxygen mask.

The Core policy making team at Federal Reserve Bank of America resumed its meeting on Wednesday morning. They are likely to discuss and analyze available economic and financial data over the period of next two days. Fed Chairman speaks

Although their is some data that indicates the recovery but still the rising un-employment and non-availability of easy credit to individuals and small business owners are some of the factors that are putting a drag on faster recovery from recession. Commercial and residential real estate markets have yet to coup with the impact from loans that went bad and took along them many a banks.

Mortgage rates are still very high. In September, when the key policy makers of Fed met, the team outlined  a very pragmatic plan to bring the mortgage rates down for the main street consumers and try to kick start the housing sector. It is very likely that we will see some positive movement in the same direction at end of current meeting.

Since the inflationary effect of recent stimulus packages is almost none, Fed might try to take some drastic measures to keep Prime Mortgage Rates at or around 3.25 percent. These measures, that would seem stupid if seen out of context, include pushing the target rate for it bank lending further down and keep it between zero percent and 0.25 percent. This will impact all aspects of economy as the commercial bank’s prime lending rate is used as a yard stick to determine interest rates  for home equity loans, credit cards and other types of consumer finance products.

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Japan’s Economy heading towards deflation- Retail Sales Falls up to 5.8%

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It is shown from Japan consumer price Index that their economy is moving towards deflation the overall sales show that the consumption of different commodities might not be supporting prices. The government has announced to pass a budget for 2009/10 probably on Friday. Government is facing immense pressure to spend more in order to stimulate consumer price index.

comsumer price index

The main reason of this deflation is a slide in oil prices as the government makes efforts to pull out the country from deepening recession period.

There has been a larger fall in prices than what was expected in February retail sales that are yet another bad sign for the exports, as they are Japan’s main engine of growth.
Japanese inflation rate remains fixed in February, but economists warned that the country will face the deflation as soon as the global downturn hits demand at home and abroad.

In December the figure of the core Consumer Price Index (CPI) rises 0.2% but become flat in January, in this CPI the volatile fresh food prices were excluded. The CPI remains unchanged from a year earlier although it was expected that there would be a small drop.
Prices slid by 0.1 percent on per year basis in the “core-core” index, which excludes the fresh food and energy prices.

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