The EU and the ECB formally recommended that the euro area finance ministers approve Latvia to join the monetary union on January 1. They will do so next month. The small Baltic country will become the 18th member of EMU,...
The disparate views among Federal Reserve officials often commands the market’s attention. Yet there is one area in which all the regional president agree and this will move into the spotlight tomorrow. The Federal...
This Great Graphic comes from the Center for Economic and Policy Research and was posted on the Washington Post’s Wonk Blog. For all the complaining by the anarchists libertarians and conservatives about the slide...
Japan has released a number of reports early in the Tokyo session that show an economy seemingly on the mend and an easing of deflationary pressures. Ironically, the yen tended to weaken in response, whereas the dollar...
The euro area provided its first estimate of Q1. The 0.2% decline in GDP comes after a 0.6% contraction in Q4 and confirms the euro area as the weakest among the high income regions. It is the sixth consecutive...
Country specific data on Japanese portfolio capital outflows is lagged, like the US TIC data, by two months. The March data was recently released. This Great Graphic from Bloomberg shows Japanese investors bond purchases...
This Great Graphic was spotted by a colleague Andrew Hofer. He saw it on the Nikos Tsafos’ blog Greek Default Watch blog. It is a color-coded tracking of how the individual members of the euro have done...
This Great Graphic was in a report by Chris Flood of the Financial Times. It shows the increased use of ETFs by asset managers. Flood reports that ETFS are now used by 18% of US institutional fund managers, up 4...
Since the ECB’s decision not to pay interest on reserves, when it brought the deposit rate to zero last July, banks have shifted their funds out of the deposit facility and into current balance. At the same time, they...
This is an important day for Portugal. It is selling 10-year bonds for the first time in more than two years. Demand is reportedly strong. Today’s 10-year sale follows the 5-year bond sale in January and heralds to...