Former IMF chief Christine Lagarde said President Donald Trump's trade offensive against China could slash global economic growth and she critiqued his Twitter habits in an interview with US television program 60 Minutes.
The Federal Reserve has announced a new program to boost liquidity in the US financial plumbing and allow the central bank to better manage interest rates, but without changing monetary policy.
Trade policy uncertainty driven by the Trump administration's escalating dispute with China means hundreds of billions of dollars in lost U.S. output and as much as US$850 billion lost globally through early next year, research published this week by the Federal Reserve suggests.
United States President Donald Trump on Friday accused the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of inaction as the Euro slid in value against the dollar, something he said gave European countries a big trade advantage.
The following article was published 6 August, in the Wall Street Journal, signed by ex-Fed chiefs Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen. Basically, it states that the US economy functions best when the central bank is free of short-term political pressures.
World stock markets plunged on Monday as Beijing parried US President Donald Trump's latest tariff announcements by moving to let China's Yuan currency devalue and halting purchases of US agricultural products.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who last week cut U.S. interest rates as an insurance policy against the effects of simmering trade tensions, may need to buy more coverage after the United States late on Monday designated China a currency manipulator.
Brazil's central bank slashed interest rates to a record low on Wednesday in response to the worsening outlook for Latin America's biggest economy. The bank cut its main rate to 6% from the previous historic low of 6.5%, which had been unchanged since March 2018.
Optimistic investors drove Wall Street to fresh record highs amid strong expectations of an impending US interest rate cut. The Dow Jones index lifted by 179 points, 0.7 per cent, to 26,966. The broader S&P 500 posted its third consecutive record high, up 0.8 per cent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.75 per cent.
A divided Federal Reserve held the line on interest rates Wednesday and indicated formally that no cuts are coming in 2019. The decision came amid divisions over what is ahead and still leaves open the possibility that policy loosening could happen before the end of the year depending on how conditions unfold.