Riksbank expands QE and signals more

Oct 29, 2015 02:54 am UTC| Commentary Central Banks

The Riksbank kept its repo rate unchanged at -0.35% and decided to expand its QE programme, broadly in line with expectations. Citing considerable global uncertainty and rising expectations that central banks abroad...

Asia shares rise as fed maintains near-zero rates

Oct 29, 2015 02:45 am UTC| Commentary

Asian markets celebrated the Federal Reserves decision on Wednesday to maintain near-zero interest rates, with the main market bourses experiencing soft gains on Thursday morning. Japans benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose...

Markets putting Fed normalization bets back on the table

Oct 29, 2015 02:05 am UTC| Commentary

Brushing through the initial risk selloff in equities, positive sentiment was generally intact post the FOMC release. US equity indices ended sharply higher alongside UST yields. Interestingly, the market is viewing the...

Fed and ECB return focus to monetary policy divergences

Oct 29, 2015 02:01 am UTC| Commentary Central Banks

The FOMC statement, yesterday, renewed expectations for a US rate lift-off in December and lifted the USD higher. The Fed removed the reference of global economic and financial developments restraining economic activities...

India's business environment improves but lags Asian peers

Oct 29, 2015 01:49 am UTC| Commentary

The World Banks Ease of Doing business survey ranked India at the 130th position amongst 189 countries. This marks an improvement of 4 notches from last years revised ranking. Most improvement was noted in ease of starting...

More foreign investments expected for Indonesia

Oct 29, 2015 01:43 am UTC| Commentary

While current account (C/A) deficit has narrowed to 2% of GDP in 1H15, some risks still remain, which may widen again to 2.5% in 2016. The improvement in trade balance has been due to plummeting imports rather than a sharp...

Global easing bias remains, despite prospect of Fed tightening

Oct 28, 2015 17:22 pm UTC| Commentary Central Banks

While the FOMC meeting will presumably have concluded with no change in policy, economists continue to expect US interest rates to be raised more than the markets anticipate in 2016 and beyond. Nonetheless, this prospect...