J. P. Marín-Arrese | Once again, Jerome Powell played down the need for monetary easing in the press conference following the Fed’s rate cut decision. His unconvincing delivery led Mr Trump to heap scorn on his uninspiring performance. For once, his bitter recriminations were fully justified.
J. P. Marín-Arrese | Against all odds, Draghi has secured consensus over his stimuli package by a cunny trade-off between the subdued intensity of individual measures in exchange of ample coverage. His brilliant brinkmanship as Chair of the ECB facilitates the task of his successor as Ms Lagarde can wait-and-see comfortably cushioned by a strong and comprehensive arsenal relieving her of the need to change course for many months to come.
Niel Dwane (Allianz GI) | The response of central banks to the financial crisis 10 years ago may have saved the world from a devastating depression, but it also created a host of unforeseen effects – from more indebtedness to more economic inequality. Looking back at what we got right – and what went wrong – what lessons can we take away for the future?
Miguel Navascués | Central banks announcements are better than nothing, but may not be enough. In my opinion, the central message of Keynes is that, for those taking investment decisions, the future cannot be reduced to a risk calculus formula, because there is always a zone of uncertainty (by definition incalculable) which influences spending decisions: consumption, but, above all, productive investment.
A soft landing is the Holy Grail of central bankers. The glory that accrues from avoiding the economic costs of a recession by skilful manipulation of interest rates. But do such efforts to avoid, or mitigate, recessions simply store up trouble for the future? Does seeking to avoid a recession simply lead to a worse recession in the future?
J. P. Marín-Arrese | While betting on such firepower helped to ground the recovery, its ability to deliver a sustained boom seems less obvious.
Fernando Fernández (IEAF) | Perhaps the moment has arrived to abandon the temptation to arbitrate, to recover humility and discuss what should be the aim of monetary policy.
Morgan Stanley | As we indicated in our last real estate strategy report, this has been the worst sector in Europe in 2Q19 (oversold and with a relative performance of 3.5sd below its 12MA). This has been mainly motivated by concerns about the proposal to freeze rental prices in the city of Berlin (and its possible spread to other cities in the country) as well as the uncertainty regarding Brexit.
Low growth below the 2% threshold coupled with below-target inflation has led our macros to believe that the ECB is taking extra stimulus for granted. This would mean the return of the centra banks’ asset repurchase program, experts at Morgan Stanley point out..
David F. Lafferty (Natixis) | Christine Lagarde’s appointment was somewhat of surprise where few economists predicted her to take the helm of the ECB. This gives some indication of how complex the negotiations were for the new EC governing positions.