Central banks

Central banks worldwide will need to face the fact that pressure on prices will remain high for the coming years and that inflation dynamics will continue to be clouded by uncertainty, Switzerland’s central bank chief has told his colleagues in Jackson Hole. The Swiss central bank also prides itself in working with a narrow mandate that is not influenced by political considerations.

It was the week of the central banks. The Bank of England raised interest rates by 15 basis points, the US Fed hinted at three rate hikes and a reduction in the buy-back programme. What exactly the ECB is aiming for is not entirely clear to market analysts. One thing is clear: a rate hike is the ultimum remedium for the central bank of President Christine Lagarde. 

It is too early to talk about stagflation, but inflation risks are rising and therefore central banks need to be very vigilant about tightening monetary policy early if prices rise and global growth slows. 

You may have noticed that when Whatsapp starts a new chat, it displays a message that “end-to-end encryption” is being used. This means that the content of the messages cannot be read by anyone other than the people in the chat (though some question the extent of this). Facebook, the owner of Whatsapp, knows something about who you were in contact with and when, but not (necessarily) what it was about.

BlackRock calls the new status quo in the global economy ‘New Nominal’. “The ’New Nominal’ is the situation in which higher inflation no longer causes sharply rising interest rates, and dangers for corrections in the stock markets are lower,” said Lukas Daalder, chief investment strategist at BlackRock, in an interview with Investment Officer Luxembourg’s sister publication, Fondsnieuws.nl. The reason is the 2021 Mid-year Outlook that was published last week.