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Unlike a growing number of central banks in Asia who have pressed the pause button or are close to doing so, the BoE and ECB are both expected to continue raising rates in their battle to get inflation back down towards target. St Louis Fed president James Bullard is much more hawkish though, as he confirmed in an interview with Reuters. The central banks of Australia, Indonesia, India, Singapore and South Korea have all paused, and the Philippine central bank governor signaled a pause in May. Research from the Bank for International Settlements shows that the global tightening cycle since the start of last year is the most synchronized and strongest over the past 50 years, with more than 95% of central banks raising their policy rates. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ The US dollar's outlook is complicated. Here's what to know about the currency's standing on the world stage.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The dollar's position as a top reserve currency, however, may be somewhat less certain. They pointed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a catalyst for the currency's drop-off as a reserve currency. "We believe the erosion of the dollar's reserve currency status has accelerated in recent years at an alarming pace," Eurizon said. Here's the takeaway forecasters seem to agree on: The dollar's losing some ground as a global reserve currency, but none at all as far as international trade. What's your outlook for the dollar's role on the world stage in 2023 and beyond?

ORLANDO, Florida, April 14 (Reuters) - Engineering a soft landing is hard. Blinder posits that the soft landing parameters of avoiding recession completely are too narrow. "To achieve another soft landing under these circumstances, the Fed will have to be skillful indeed," Blinder concludes. The Fed cut rates five months later and the rest is soft landing history. Of these 70 episodes, 41 ended with a hard landing and 29 with a soft landing.

☆ Global derivatives industry defends CDS after banking blow-ups
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Marc Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Credit default swaps (CDS) are derivatives that offer insurance against the risk of a bond issuer - such as a bank - not paying their creditors. European Union markets watchdog ESMA said on Thursday that it, together national regulators, had been "looking into the recent market movements, including in the CDS market". Clearing of individual bank or company CDS is also available at LCH’s CDSClear and ICE Clear Credit. Overall, the credit derivatives market is also far smaller than it was before the 2008 crisis. "The credit derivatives market continues to play a critical role, particularly during times of volatility," Malia said.

☆ Explainer: What are credit default swaps and why are they causing trouble for Europe's banks?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Amanda Cooper | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Turbulence in Europe's banks following the implosion of 167-year-old Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) and runs on regional banks in the U.S. has focused attention on the role played by credit default swaps in all the turmoil. The moves followed a surge in the cost of insuring Deutsche Bank's debt against default via credit default swaps (CDS) to a more than four-year high last week. Credit default swaps are derivatives that offer insurance against the risk of a bond issuer - such as a company, a bank or a sovereign government - not paying their creditors. The CDS market is worth around $3.8 trillion, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. The CDS market is small relative to equities, foreign exchange or the global bond markets, where there are more than $120 trillion bonds outstanding.

☆ Central bank tests spur global instant payment hopes
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - A year of tests run by central banks in Italy, Malaysia and Singapore have spurred hopes for a global instant payments network accessible at the tap of a mobile phone. Current transfers are slowed by the patchwork of more than 60 different instant payment networks, so central banks involved in the new tests have been working on ways to improve the process. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bank umbrella body, which helped oversee the "Nexus" trials, said the three countries involved had successfully sent payments between themselves using only mobile phone numbers. Looking ahead, the BIS said further trials would be run by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand with the hope that "Nexus could eventually be implemented globally." Reporting by Marc Jones Editing by Mark PotterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Boomers Greed Ruined Economy for Gen Z, Millennials
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Alex Yablon | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

The boomers' economy is brittle, stingy, and built on undersupply. While inflation may be cooling a bit, future prosperity for millennials, Gen Zers, and beyond depends on reversing this economywide bottleneck created by boomers. Boomers shrank the labor force they need nowThe baby boomers ensured the labor market of the generations after them would be inadequate in a few major ways. The boomer ethos on housing, which views homes not as places to live but as financial assets, is mirrored in the rest of the economy boomers made. They make loans, investment, and housing more expensive — putting the economy on a diet instead of growing the pie.

☆ Analysis: Rebounding U.S. dollar a growing headache for investors
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Saqib Iqbal Ahmed | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

NEW YORK, March 1 (Reuters) - Investors reeling from the recent volatility in global financial markets are eyeing another potential worry: a rebounding dollar. MSCI’s index for emerging market stocks (.MSCIEF) has slipped 8% from its January highs, while the MSCI Emerging Markets Currency Index (.MIEM00000CUS) is down 3% from its early February high. "A stronger dollar poses a problem for risk assets," said Lauren Goodwin, economist and portfolio strategist at New York Life Investments. The dollar's recent rebound has weighed on various risk assetsBecause of the dollar's central role in the global financial system, its fluctuations have widespread repercussions. Whether the dollar continues its rebound will depend in part on investors' perceptions of how much higher the Fed will need to raise interest rates.

☆ Why the dollar keeps winning in the global economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Francesco Guerrera | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

The outsized role played by the United States in capital markets, trade and debt reinforces the status quo. Unless the global economy undergoes a complete overhaul, the dollar will remain on top. America may have never “run on Dunkin’”, as the donut-maker’s slogan claimed, but the global economy runs on the dollar. The United States has spurred the search for alternatives by wielding its currency as a weapon against its adversaries. The greenback’s function as the lubricant of global economic activity has another important effect: a stronger dollar curbs global trade.

☆ BIS urges central banks to 'get the job done'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Marc Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Central banks need to "get the job done" when it comes to getting inflation back under control, the Bank for International Settlements has said, urging them to avoid the mistakes of the 1970's by declaring victory too early. The BIS, dubbed the bank for central banks, said it was vital authorities didn't repeat the stop-start cycles of the 1970s when interest rates had to be hiked to painfully high levels after attempts to lower them resulted in an inflation surge. "Central banks have been very, very clear that at this stage the most important aspect is to get the job done," the head of the BIS' Monetary and Economic Department, Claudio Borio, said as part of a quarterly report. The BIS' report also included research showing that rate rises are more likely to cause financial system stress when private debt levels are high, although tougher "prudential policies" can reduce the risk and give central banks more room for manoeuvre. Another section looks at how higher commodity prices and the U.S. dollar exchange rate significantly affects the risk of stagflation - weak growth and high inflation - especially in developing market economies.

Some estimates have suggested the unemployment rate, currently at more than a five-decade low of 3.4%, may have to approach 7% for inflation to fall on a reasonable timetable. But a series of rapid rate hikes last year, which pushed the Fed's benchmark overnight interest rate from near zero to the current 4.50%-4.75% range, has so far been relatively cost-free. Those projections have inflation dropping to 2.1% by the end of 2025, with the economy growing throughout and the unemployment rate rising only to around 4.6%. By contrast, they said "the cost of lowering inflation to the Fed's 2% target by 2025 will likely be associated with at least a mild recession." Perhaps too reliant on the tame inflation of recent decades, the Fed made a "significant error" by not raising interest rates "preemptively" when inflation began accelerating in 2021, the group concluded.

☆ Crypto lost the battle to be an alternative to fiat money after FTX collapse, top economist says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Agustin Carstens, the head of the Bank for International Settlements, said crypto is not a replacement for fiat currencies. "Only the legal, historical infrastructure behind central banks can give great credibility [to money]," the economist told Bloomberg. Crypto regulation, Carstens said, will likely strengthen after FTX's catastrophic downfall. Regulation, Carstens added, will likely strengthen because of the fallout. "Only the legal, historical infrastructure behind central banks can give great credibility [to money]," per Carstens, adding that crypto can really only exist "under certain conditions."

☆ Indian cenbank onshore, offshore intervention helps rupee outperform-traders
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Nimesh Vora | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/3] A security guard stands next to the logo of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) inside its headquarters in Mumbai, India, February 8, 2023. "Without the RBI, there is little doubt that the rupee would be significantly lower," a currency and rates trader at a Singapore-based hedge fund said. This trader and two others that Reuters spoke to did not want to be identified on account of their internal policies. "The RBI's offshore presence, alongside what it is doing onshore, is making speculators stay away from the rupee," a trader at a Mumbai-based private sector bank said. A trader at a second private sector bank said one of the largest public sector banks has been "on both sides" in the onshore market, making the rupee "fairly unresponsive".

A year from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, fracturing geopolitics seems to be rolling back world trade links and financial interdependence at speed. But global financial conditions - and the strength of the U.S. dollar as a proxy for that - may be playing a bigger part than the more dramatic political narrative lets on. "A stronger dollar tends to go hand in hand with tighter global financial conditions and more subdued supply chain activity." Compensating somewhat for dollar exchange rate strength over the decade were historically low real dollar borrowing rates. There's little doubt that the pandemic and the geopolitics surrounding Ukraine and Taiwan have been major potential disruptions to world trade by themselves.

☆ FTX's collapse wiped out $200 billion in the total value of the cryptocurrency market, and it hit retail investors in emerging economies the hardest
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

FTX's downfall wiped out $200 billion from crypto's market capitalization last year, a new report revealed. Retail investors in emerging economies like India and Thailand were hit the hardest, per the Bank for International Settlements. Over 80% of retail participants using a crypto-trading app would have lost money from the market turmoil. "Notably, this share is even higher in several emerging market economies like Brazil, India, Pakistan, Thailand and Turkey. The token, which promised retail investors lofty yields in exchange for parking their assets, caused $450 billion of market value to vanish, per the BIS report.

☆ Euronext has no plans to copy rivals with cloud computing deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Huw Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Euronext will not mimic rivals by shifting critical services to outside cloud computers given regulatory concerns, the pan-European exchange's chief executive Stephane Boujnah said. London Stock Exchange Group, CME and Nasdaq have all announced partnerships with cloud computing giants like Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft, with Deutsche Boerse joining them on Thursday in a "strategic partnership" with Google. Euronext only uses a cloud provider for storing historical data, he said. "We analyse very carefully the dependency on certain providers," Boujnah said as Euronext reported full year earnings. Euronext said it has increased its 2024 annual pre-tax savings related to integrating Borsa Italiana by 15 million euros to 115 million, with around 70 million of this achieved by the end of 2023 as implementation costs remain unchanged.

☆ Re-think needed to regulate Big Tech in finance, says BIS' Carstens
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - A "re-think" is needed on how to directly regulate activities of Big Tech companies in financial services given their size and influence, Bank for International Settlements General Manager Agustin Carstens said in Wednesday. "Without a doubt, a regulatory re-think is warranted, and we need a new path to follow. One that considers the key role of data in big techs’ DNA-based business model. One that strikes the right balance between benefits and risks," Carstens said in a speech. Reporting by Huw Jones; editing by Jason NeelyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Post-QE bond losses rising reality for central banks - BIS
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Marc Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] The building of the European Central Bank (ECB) is seen amid a fog before the monthly news conference following the ECB's monetary policy meeting in Frankfurt, Germany December 15, 2022. The ECB and a number of national central banks in Europe have issued warnings, though. There were dozens of past examples from developing economies, including Mexico, Chile, the Czech Republic and Israel, where central banks can operate without major difficulties in negative equity, it said. "To maintain the public's trust and to preserve central bank legitimacy now and in the long run, stakeholders should appreciate that central banks' policy mandates come before profits," the paper said. Central banks transfers turning to losses($1 = 0.9317 euros)Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Bradley PerrettOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Central bank test lab to trial 'stablecoin' monitoring system
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Marc Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - A global central bank test lab run out of London is designing a 'stablecoin' monitoring system aimed at giving authorities a clearer picture on how they work and how to regulate them in future. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency which aim to maintain a 1:1 peg with a fiat currency such as the dollar. The collapse last year of a widely-used stablecoin pair, Luna and TerraUSD, sparked widespread turmoil in crypto markets. In a bid to ensure there is more oversight going forward, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), often dubbed the central bank for the world's central banks, is to begin work in its London 'innovation hub' on a tool to keep tabs on them. "Most central banks lack tools to systemically monitor stablecoins and avoid asset-liability mismatches," the BIS said.

☆ New look CBDCs and cryptomarket to emerge from turmoil, top BIS official says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Marc Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Cryptomarkets have not been killed off by last year's turmoil, while the new wave of central bank digital currencies will face geopolitical limits, the Bank for International Settlements' new innovation head has predicted. Dubbed the central bank to the world's central bank, the BIS has long been critical of cryptocurrencies, likening bitcoin to both a ponzi scheme and market bubble in the past. Since the start of 2023, however, there has been something of a rebound, including a 40% recovery in bitcoin's price. The European Central Bank should get the go-ahead for full-scale tests. "We will never have full interconnectedness," Skingsley said, adding though that the BIS' work aimed to make CBDCs as versatile as possible.

By announcing an inflation goal, central bankers feel they build credibility for themselves and focus the planning of households and firms in ways that help keep inflation controlled. Those decades, up to the end of the first year of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, saw inflation largely contained. Achieving that target is just core to our overall monetary policy," Brainard said, a sentiment echoed in central bank headquarters from Frankfurt to London to Tokyo. "Let me be quite clear, there are no ifs or buts in our commitment to the 2% inflation target," Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said last year. Should inflation prove stickier than expected, achieving the central bank's 2% inflation goal could mean even more losses.

HONG KONG, Jan 17 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The Chinese economy grew 3% in 2022, the government reported, beating forecasts but way below the official 5% target. The surprising lift is largely thanks to a rosier-than-expected fourth quarter, when the country took a ride on a pandemic-policy rollercoaster. As the contagious Omicron strain spread through cities, local officials’ first reaction was to tighten lockdowns, which suppressed consumption. That’s hardly enough to revive market confidence; Chinese equity indexes fell after the GDP report. The Chinese government had set the official annual GDP target at "around" 5.5% in March.

☆ Traders will anxiously watch the Bank of Japan
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

HONG KONG, Dec 19 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Shorting the Bank of Japan (8301.T) is the trade of 2023. Gyrations in Japanese bond yields resulting from an abrupt increase in benchmark interest rates could force indebted domestic entities to dump overseas assets, roiling global markets. The question on traders’ collective mind is what happens when the central bank finally adjusts its “yield-curve control” policy, or YCC, which has held down government bond yields for more than six years. A higher-than-expected wage hike resulting from springtime negotiations could persuade officials that salaries are offsetting higher prices, bolstering the case for normalising interest rates. Meanwhile higher interest rates would allow Japanese companies to earn better returns on their 325 trillion yen ($2.4 trillion) cash hoard.

☆ There's a $80 trillion 'blind spot' in the financial system that could spell trouble for markets as debts held off-balance sheet grow at a rapid pace
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Matthew Fox | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

There's a growing pile of hidden debts that could shock markets, according to the Bank for International Settlements. BIS said there's more than $65 trillion in currency related debts that has little transparency and is growing quickly. A lack of supply of US dollars could create a systemic financial event that roils markets, BIS said. The BIS calls it a "blind spot" for the financial system, and the hidden debt is growing quickly, having more than doubled since 2008. "Off-balance sheet dollar debt may remain out of sight and out of mind, but only until the next time dollar funding liquidity is squeezed.

☆ BIS warns of $80 trillion of hidden FX swap debt
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Marc Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

LONDON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has warned that pension funds and other 'non-bank' financial firms now have more than $80 trillion of hidden, off-balance sheet dollar debt in the form of FX swaps. Its main warning though was what it described as the FX swap debt "blind spot" that risked leaving policymakers in a "fog". FX swap markets, where for example a Dutch pension fund or Japanese insurer borrows dollars and lends euro or yen in the "spot leg" before later repaying them, have a history of problems. For both non-U.S. banks and non-U.S. 'non-banks' such as pension funds, dollar obligations from FX swaps are now double their on-balance sheet dollar debt, it estimated. Market volatilityDINO-MITEOther sections of the report focused on findings from its recent global FX market survey.

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