U.S. Federal Reserve
At the recent CFA Institute India Investment Conference in Mumbai, attendees were presented with two very different perspectives on quantitative easing.
World news media are rife with speculation about who will be the next chair of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System, arguably the most important central banker in the world. We asked readers which characteristic, from an investor's point of view, they considered the most important for the next Fed chair.
A number of factors, including Fed Chair Ben Bernanke’s comments about a September taper, currency volatility creating turmoil in emerging markets, and conflicting analyses of jobless claims in the United States have placed an unusual emphasis on this week’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. The committee’s decisions will have a far-reaching impact on fixed-income markets around the world. Here’s a curated list of articles to help you understand the issues facing those markets, and how they may respond.
While it is true that the government interventions of the past few years indeed avoided a massive debt deflation cycle, it is also true the these interventions themselves are changing the fundamental structure of the economy, as well as the expectations of its participants.
Interest rates in the US have started to rise over the past month, surprising many in the investment world. We asked readers earlier this week: Have interest rates in the US finally started their upward climb toward normalcy? For many of the 918 respondents (approximately 42%), the answer is "Yes, recent increases are in response to important changes in the interest-rate landscape."
David Kelly, CFA, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds, outlines three problems with the current Federal Reserve policy of zero interest rates and quantitative easing.