Fed & BCE - Bancos Centrais e suas políticas!

[Semitela]

Banco de Inglaterra injecta de emergência liquidez no mercado

17.03.2008 - 19h06 Lusa

O Banco de Inglaterra efectuou hoje de emergência uma injecção de liquidez no mercado monetário, procurando evitar uma maior agitação e dificuldades nos mercados interbancários, anunciou a instituição.

A acção do Banco de Inglaterra, que envolveu a cedência de cinco mil milhões de libras esterlinas (6,36 mil milhões de euros) a três dias aos bancos, aconteceu "como resposta às condições do mercado monetário de curto prazo durante a manhã", segundo a instituição.

Durante a noite, a Reserva Federal norte-americana baixou a taxa de desconto (taxa a que empresta dinheiro aos bancos) e no fim-de-semana as autoridades norte-americanas ajudaram a negociar a venda da Bear Stearns ao JPMorgan Chase.

Os mercados bolsistas europeus e norte-americanos estavam hoje a perder entre dois e quatro por cento.

O Banco de Inglaterra recebeu pedidos de empréstimos no valor de 23,6 mil milhões de libras, cerca de cinco vezes superior ao valor que tinha para emprestar, segundo a instituição.

[Semitela]

Zona Euro 2008-03-28 10:50

BCE poderá ter que subir novamente os juros para travar inflação
O membro do conselho de governadores do Banco Central Europeu (BCE), Axel Weber, afirmou hoje que o banco central irá aumentar as taxas de juro, caso seja "necessário" para manter a inflação sob controlo nos 15 países que utilizam o euro.

Cristina Barreto

Durante um discurso no Luxemburgo, Axel Weber, citado pela agência Bloomberg, frisou que, por enquanto a actual taxa de juro de referência de 4% tem ajudado a conter a inflação, pelo que o BCE "irá actuar caso a estabilidade dos preços seja ameaçada", tendo alertado para o aumento dos riscos inflaccionistas e para o facto das ditas pressões nos preços serem alarmantes.

Em Fevereiro, a taxa anual de inflação na zona euro acelerou para 3,3%, o nível mais elevado dos últimos 14 anos. O BCE tem evitado seguir a decisão Reserva Federal norte-americana (Fed) em baixar os custos dos empréstimos em resposta à crise financeira mundial, argumentando que se encontra mais preocupado com a inflação.

O membro do conselho de governadores do BCE acrescentou ainda que "com a expansão da economia e o aumento das restrições na concessão de empréstimos, mantêm-se os riscos quanto à estabilidade dos preços a médio prazo".

[tiagodandre]

BCE disponibiliza pela primeira vez capital a seis meses

O Banco Central Europeu (BCE) vai disponibilizar aos bancos comerciais mais dinheiro. A novidade é que o fará, pela primeira vez, por seis meses. A ideia é facilitar os empréstimos e aliviar um pouco as limitações verificadas no mercado do crédito.

As operações adicionais de refinanciamento, por prazos de três e seis meses, "destinam-se a sustentar a normalização do funcionamento do mercado monetário do euro", referiu hoje o BCE em comunicado citado pela Bloomberg.

As operações a seis meses "mostram que o BCE considera que a crise está para ficar e que poderá estender-se ao próximo ano", comentou à Bloomberg uma estratega do BNP Paribas, Nathalie Fillet.

A banca está a angariar capital depois de os cerca de 208 mil milhões de dólares de perdas decorrentes da crise do "subprime" nos EUA os ter levado a apertar a concessão de crédito. Neste momento, os bancos só estão a atribuir crédito aos tomadores de empréstimos com historiais financeiros mais credíveis.

O BCE, a Reserva Federal norte-americana e o Banco de Inglaterra providenciaram este mês capital de emergência, na tentativa de travarem as crescentes taxas do mercado monetário.

O custo do crédito em euros, a três meses, atingiu hoje o mais alto nível desde 27 de Dezembro, segundo a Federação da Banca Europeia. A taxa interbancária do euro, ou Euribor, subiu menos de um ponto base, para 4,73%.

A Federação referiu que serão accionadas duas operações de seis meses, com uma quantia pré-determinada de 25 mil milhões de euros cada uma, nos dias 2 e 9 de Julho. Por outro lado, duas operações de refinanciamento a três meses, com volumes unitários de 50 mil milhões de euros, serão propostas a 21 de Maio e 11 de Junho. Todas as operações serão realizadas através de licitações variáveis.

"Trata-se de um importante sinal de estabilidade necessário para as instituições financeiras, pois garante-nos que existe financiamento", afirmou à Bloomberg um economista do Bank of America, Matthew Sharrat.

Publicado 28 Março 2008 16:04

[Semitela]

EUA 2008-04-09 12:01

Fed vai abrandar o ritmo de corte nos juros

Os responsáveis de política monetária da Reserva Federal norte-americana (Fed) assinalaram que irão abrandar o actual ritmo de redução das taxas de juro, mesmo tendo concluído que é provável "alguma contracção na actividade económica" nos Estados Unidos.

Cristina Barreto

Segundo noticia a agência Blomberg, alguns membros do Comité Federal do Mercado Aberto alertaram ontem para o perigo de um "prolongado e severo abrandamento" na maior economia do mundo, com base nas minutas da reunião do passado dia 18 de Março publicadas ontem. Ainda assim, "a política monetária sozinha não consegue responder na íntegra aos problemas subjacentes aos mercados imobiliários e financeiros".

A Reserva Federal baixou a sua taxa de juro de referência em 2 pontos percentuais nas primeiras 11 semanas deste ano, o ritmo mais acentuado dos últimos vinte anos. Neste momento, os responsáveis de política monetária poderão necessitar de avaliar o impacto destas reduções, dos 168 mil milhões de dólares em incentivos fiscais, e das drásticas medidas para aumentar a liquidez nos mercados financeiros.

A taxa de juro interbancária da Fed situasse actualmente nos 2,25%, contra os 5,25% praticados em Setembro. Os economistas defendem que os responsáveis do banco central dos EUA irão interromper a descida dos custos dos empréstimos, após terem reduzido a taxa para 1,75% em Junho, de acordo com a média das estimativas dos analistas consultados pela Bloomberg News.

[tiagodandre]

BCE deixa juros inalterados nos 4%

O Banco Central Europeu (BCE) manteve hoje, pelo décimo mês consecutivo, a taxa de juro inalterada nos 4%. Os especialistas acreditam que até Setembro, a instituição liderada por Jean-Claude Trichet não deverá alterar o custo do dinheiro, devido à inflação.

Os membros do conselho de governadores do BCE, reunidos hoje em Frankfurt, decidiram manter o custo de endividamento inalterado no nível mais elevado dos últimos seis anos, em 4%.

Os últimos dados da inflação na Zona Euro, revelam que a toada de subida dos preços não pára, tendo atingido os 3,5% em Março, o nível mais elevado em quase 16 anos. Não é expectável, dizem os especialistas, que enquanto a inflação estiver do lado das subidas, o BCE ceda a pressões políticas para baixar juros, apesar das estimativas de todas as instituições internacionais apontarem para um abrandamento do crescimento económico, na sequência da crise financeira internacional.

O BCE está mandatado para manter a subida da inflação no máximo nos 2%, uma meta que a instituição sedeada em Frankfurt considera que só será possível atingir mais perto do final do ano.

Na reunião informal dos ministros das Finanças europeus (Ecofin), realizada no último fim-de-semana, Trichet recebeu o apoio de diversos líderes europeus (tal como o comissário europeu para os Assuntos Económicos, Joaquin Almunia) que se mostram também preocupados com a escalada dos preços que se está a observar na Europa.

Embora menos sozinho na sua luta contra a inflação, ficou bem patente que nenhum líder europeu considera razoável que Trichet anuncie um aumento de taxas de juro para controlar a inflação, em especial neste momento em que a conjuntura económica é desfavorável.

Por seu lado, o Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) revelou ontem, no relatório da Primavera sobre as perspectivas económicas, que considera que o BCE tem margem de manobra para cortar os juros, uma vez que é expectável que até ao final de 2008 a inflação registe aumentos mais moderados.

Publicado 10 Abril 2008 12:45

[Semitela]

 Boa Pergunta 

O seguinte texto foi escrito pelo Sr. Greenspan antes de ser presidente da Reserva Federal Americana, e diz claramente que se devia voltar ao " gold standard "
porque é a única forma de haver uma verdadeira economia livre.
Bem, acho que todos sabemos que não foi nada disso que ele fez enquanto presidente, por isso resta-me perguntar, para onde foi o Greenspan de 1966?

"Gold and Economic Freedom

by Alan Greenspan
[written in 1966]

This article originally appeared in a newsletter: The Objectivist published in 1966 and was reprinted in Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense - perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire - that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.

In order to understand the source of their antagonism, it is necessary first to understand the specific role of gold in a free society.

Money is the common denominator of all economic transactions. It is that commodity which serves as a medium of exchange, is universally acceptable to all participants in an exchange economy as payment for their goods or services, and can, therefore, be used as a standard of market value and as a store of value, i.e., as a means of saving.

The existence of such a commodity is a precondition of a division of labor economy. If men did not have some commodity of objective value which was generally acceptable as money, they would have to resort to primitive barter or be forced to live on self-sufficient farms and forgo the inestimable advantages of specialization. If men had no means to store value, i.e., to save, neither long-range planning nor exchange would be possible.

What medium of exchange will be acceptable to all participants in an economy is not determined arbitrarily. First, the medium of exchange should be durable. In a primitive society of meager wealth, wheat might be sufficiently durable to serve as a medium, since all exchanges would occur only during and immediately after the harvest, leaving no value-surplus to store. But where store-of-value considerations are important, as they are in richer, more civilized societies, the medium of exchange must be a durable commodity, usually a metal. A metal is generally chosen because it is homogeneous and divisible: every unit is the same as every other and it can be blended or formed in any quantity. Precious jewels, for example, are neither homogeneous nor divisible. More important, the commodity chosen as a medium must be a luxury. Human desires for luxuries are unlimited and, therefore, luxury goods are always in demand and will always be acceptable. Wheat is a luxury in underfed civilizations, but not in a prosperous society. Cigarettes ordinarily would not serve as money, but they did in post-World War II Europe where they were considered a luxury. The term "luxury good" implies scarcity and high unit value. Having a high unit value, such a good is easily portable; for instance, an ounce of gold is worth a half-ton of pig iron.

In the early stages of a developing money economy, several media of exchange might be used, since a wide variety of commodities would fulfill the foregoing conditions. However, one of the commodities will gradually displace all others, by being more widely acceptable. Preferences on what to hold as a store of value, will shift to the most widely acceptable commodity, which, in turn, will make it still more acceptable. The shift is progressive until that commodity becomes the sole medium of exchange. The use of a single medium is highly advantageous for the same reasons that a money economy is superior to a barter economy: it makes exchanges possible on an incalculably wider scale.

Whether the single medium is gold, silver, seashells, cattle, or tobacco is optional, depending on the context and development of a given economy. In fact, all have been employed, at various times, as media of exchange. Even in the present century, two major commodities, gold and silver, have been used as international media of exchange, with gold becoming the predominant one. Gold, having both artistic and functional uses and being relatively scarce, has significant advantages over all other media of exchange. Since the beginning of World War I, it has been virtually the sole international standard of exchange. If all goods and services were to be paid for in gold, large payments would be difficult to execute and this would tend to limit the extent of a society's divisions of labor and specialization. Thus a logical extension of the creation of a medium of exchange is the development of a banking system and credit instruments (bank notes and deposits) which act as a substitute for, but are convertible into, gold.

A free banking system based on gold is able to extend credit and thus to create bank notes (currency) and deposits, according to the production requirements of the economy. Individual owners of gold are induced, by payments of interest, to deposit their gold in a bank (against which they can draw checks). But since it is rarely the case that all depositors want to withdraw all their gold at the same time, the banker need keep only a fraction of his total deposits in gold as reserves. This enables the banker to loan out more than the amount of his gold deposits (which means that he holds claims to gold rather than gold as security of his deposits). But the amount of loans which he can afford to make is not arbitrary: he has to gauge it in relation to his reserves and to the status of his investments.

When banks loan money to finance productive and profitable endeavors, the loans are paid off rapidly and bank credit continues to be generally available. But when the business ventures financed by bank credit are less profitable and slow to pay off, bankers soon find that their loans outstanding are excessive relative to their gold reserves, and they begin to curtail new lending, usually by charging higher interest rates. This tends to restrict the financing of new ventures and requires the existing borrowers to improve their profitability before they can obtain credit for further expansion. Thus, under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth. When gold is accepted as the medium of exchange by most or all nations, an unhampered free international gold standard serves to foster a world-wide division of labor and the broadest international trade. Even though the units of exchange (the dollar, the pound, the franc, etc.) differ from country to country, when all are defined in terms of gold the economies of the different countries act as one-so long as there are no restraints on trade or on the movement of capital. Credit, interest rates, and prices tend to follow similar patterns in all countries. For example, if banks in one country extend credit too liberally, interest rates in that country will tend to fall, inducing depositors to shift their gold to higher-interest paying banks in other countries. This will immediately cause a shortage of bank reserves in the "easy money" country, inducing tighter credit standards and a return to competitively higher interest rates again.

A fully free banking system and fully consistent gold standard have not as yet been achieved. But prior to World War I, the banking system in the United States (and in most of the world) was based on gold and even though governments intervened occasionally, banking was more free than controlled. Periodically, as a result of overly rapid credit expansion, banks became loaned up to the limit of their gold reserves, interest rates rose sharply, new credit was cut off, and the economy went into a sharp, but short-lived recession. (Compared with the depressions of 1920 and 1932, the pre-World War I business declines were mild indeed.) It was limited gold reserves that stopped the unbalanced expansions of business activity, before they could develop into the post-World Was I type of disaster. The readjustment periods were short and the economies quickly reestablished a sound basis to resume expansion.

But the process of cure was misdiagnosed as the disease: if shortage of bank reserves was causing a business decline-argued economic interventionists-why not find a way of supplying increased reserves to the banks so they never need be short! If banks can continue to loan money indefinitely-it was claimed-there need never be any slumps in business. And so the Federal Reserve System was organized in 1913. It consisted of twelve regional Federal Reserve banks nominally owned by private bankers, but in fact government sponsored, controlled, and supported. Credit extended by these banks is in practice (though not legally) backed by the taxing power of the federal government. Technically, we remained on the gold standard; individuals were still free to own gold, and gold continued to be used as bank reserves. But now, in addition to gold, credit extended by the Federal Reserve banks ("paper reserves") could serve as legal tender to pay depositors.

When business in the United States underwent a mild contraction in 1927, the Federal Reserve created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage. More disastrous, however, was the Federal Reserve's attempt to assist Great Britain who had been losing gold to us because the Bank of England refused to allow interest rates to rise when market forces dictated (it was politically unpalatable). The reasoning of the authorities involved was as follows: if the Federal Reserve pumped excessive paper reserves into American banks, interest rates in the United States would fall to a level comparable with those in Great Britain; this would act to stop Britain's gold loss and avoid the political embarrassment of having to raise interest rates. The "Fed" succeeded; it stopped the gold loss, but it nearly destroyed the economies of the world, in the process. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market-triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom. But it was too late: by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed. Great Britain fared even worse, and rather than absorb the full consequences of her previous folly, she abandoned the gold standard completely in 1931, tearing asunder what remained of the fabric of confidence and inducing a world-wide series of bank failures. The world economies plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930's.

With a logic reminiscent of a generation earlier, statists argued that the gold standard was largely to blame for the credit debacle which led to the Great Depression. If the gold standard had not existed, they argued, Britain's abandonment of gold payments in 1931 would not have caused the failure of banks all over the world. (The irony was that since 1913, we had been, not on a gold standard, but on what may be termed "a mixed gold standard"; yet it is gold that took the blame.) But the opposition to the gold standard in any form-from a growing number of welfare-state advocates-was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending (the hallmark of the welfare state). Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale.

Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy's tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government's promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot easily be absorbed by the financial markets. A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government deficit spending under a gold standard is severely limited. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. They have created paper reserves in the form of government bonds which-through a complex series of steps-the banks accept in place of tangible assets and treat as if they were an actual deposit, i.e., as the equivalent of what was formerly a deposit of gold. The holder of a government bond or of a bank deposit created by paper reserves believes that he has a valid claim on a real asset. But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets. The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy's books are finally balanced, one finds that this loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."

###

Alan Greenspan
[written in 1966]


http://www.321gold.com/fed/greenspan/1966.html

[Semitela]

Credit squeeze still constricting economy

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- In this downturn, the Federal Reserve is fighting on two interrelated fronts simultaneously, battling to keep the real economy growing and to revive the credit markets.

The Fed has won some victories on both fronts. A serious recession has been prevented so far, and the worse fears of a systemic credit meltdown have been put to rest. However, if health isn't restored to the credit system, the downturn could worsen.
After a deluge of news last week, the economic headlines in the coming week will be sparse, with few top-tier numbers being released. One report that usually doesn't get much attention could this time because it may help us understand how much progress has been made in fixing the banking system.

The Fed is expected to release its senior loan officer survey on Monday. This quarterly report provides a snapshot into the lending activities of banks in terms of supply and demand. In January, the Fed report showed significant tightening of lending standards across a variety of sectors, from mortgages and credit cards to commercial real estate and commercial and industrial loans.

Banks have been shutting down their lending, in response both to rising risks of default and to the pressures to rebuild their capital base. The Fed has flooded the banks with liquidity, and has badgered them to resume lending to their best customers.
The Federal Open Market Committee noted "tight" credit conditions in its statement on April 30, rather than the "tightening" it cited in March, perhaps a sign that the most recent survey wasn't significantly worse than in January.

The survey reports the percentage of banks tightening standards compared with last quarter, so a decline in the number of banks "tightening" doesn't necessarily mean credit is getting easier to get, only that the screws aren't being tightened any further.
The credit crunch won't be really over until banks start easing standards again.
In terms of the regular monthly data, the March trade report is probably the most important. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expect the trade balance to narrow to $61 billion in March from $62.3 billion in February. The figures will be released Friday. See Economic Calendar.

"Our outlook for the economy is decidedly negative over the next two quarters, but a bright light continues to be the improving American trade position," wrote Meny Grauman, an economist for CIBC World Markets. Despite steadily rising energy prices, "a weak dollar, a flagging U.S. consumer and firm demand overseas are all helping to give net exports a boost."
Another bright spot could be productivity figures. Although productivity likely decelerated to 1.6% annualized in the first quarter from 1.9%, the more reliable year-over-year increase in productivity probably improved to about 3.2% from 2.9%. Unit labor costs also decelerated on a year-over-year basis. The figures will be released Wednesday.
The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing index is expected to be relatively unchanged at 49.4%, compared with 49.6% in March. Readings under 50% indicate more firms are contracting than expanding. 

Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch.

[tiagodandre]

Fed tenta accionar nova medida para estabilizar mercados monetários

A Reserva Federal (Fed) norte-americana vai pedir ao congresso autorização para pagar juros, este ano, aos bancos comerciais pelas suas reservas, de acordo com fontes próximas do assunto, citadas pela Bloomberg.

A autoridade monetária liderada por Ben Bernanke não está autorizado a fazer estes pagamentos até 2011.

Em causa está uma nova medida para tentar que os bancos tenham acesso a mais liquidez e mais uma tentativa para acalmar o mercado monetário.

Os bancos são obrigados a guardar uma parte dos depósitos dos clientes numa conta da Fed e é sobre esses montantes que a autoridade monetária está a pedir autorização para pagar juros.

Publicado 7 Maio 2008 10:48



Fed dos EUA planeia separar fornecimento de liquidez aos bancos das taxas de juro

O presidente da Reserva Federal dos Estados Unidos (Fed), Ben S. Bernanke, prepara-se para pedir ao Congresso norte-americano autoridade para passar a pagar juros sobre as reservas dos bancos comerciais já a partir deste ano, de modo a estabilizar os mercados monetários norte-americanos.

Segundo noticia a agência Bloomberg, que cita uma fonte familiar com as negociações, caso seja autorizada, esta medida irá permitir à Fed injectar mais fundos no sistema financeiro sem ter que baixar as suas taxas de juro, o que terá como efeito prático separar as acções para aumentar a liquidez da política monetária.

Até agora, a Fed só possui permissão do Congresso para começar a efectuar este tipo pagamentos aos bancos a partir de 2011.

Segundo afirmou à Bloomberg um especialista, esta medida "teria como efeito impedir mais descidas das taxas de juro de referência" nos Estados Unidos.

É exigido por lei aos bancos norte-americanos que mantenham uma parte dos seus depósitos de clientes numa conta junto da Reserva Federal. Em adição, as instituições mantém também reservas, de modo a poderem fazer face aos pagamentos e levantamentos por parte dos seus clientes.

A mesma fonte acrescenta que responsáveis da Fed iniciaram esta semana discussões com congressistas para antecipar a data sobre a qual serão pagos juros pelas reservas dos bancos, sendo ainda necessário elaborar detalhes sobre o funcionamento do programa, e quais os juros que a Fed iria pagar.

"As taxas do mercado monetário interbancário serão estabilizadas com esta política", explicou Marvin Goodfriend, professor na Universidade Carnegie Mellon, e antigo conselheiro da Fed.

EUA/Finança 2008-05-07 15:09

[bluexip]

cumprimentos,
bluexip

[tiagodandre]

Notas em circulação na zona euro registam acréscimo de 1,8 mil milhões de euros na semana passada

O Banco Central Europeu (BCE) anunciou hoje que, na semana que terminou a 9 de Maio, o montante de notas em circulação na zona euro aumentou em 1,8 mil milhões de euros, para um montante total de 673,5 mil milhões de euros.

Cristina Barreto

De acordo com o relatório da 'Situação Financeira Consolidada do Eurosistema' a 9 de Maio de 2008, a posição líquida do Eurosistema em moeda estrangeira cresceu também em 6,6 mil milhões de euros, passando para 159,8 mil milhões de euros. Este reforço deve-se a uma operação de cedência de liquidez em dólares dos EUA, no âmbito do acordo cambial temporário entre o BCE e a Reserva Federal norte-americana (Fed), liquidada a 8 de Maio de 2008, e a transacções de carteira e em nome de clientes.

O mesmo documento refere que os títulos negociáveis detidos pelo Eurosistema emitidos por residentes na área do euro e expressos em euros registaram um acréscimo na semana passada de 600 milhões de euros, totalizando os 110,6 mil milhões de euros.

Por outro lado, as responsabilidades para com a Administração Pública diminuíram em 3,2 mil milhões para um total de 54,3 mil milhões de euros.

BCE 2008-05-13 16:23

[tiagodandre]

Fed lowers growth forecast, raises inflation view
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRT00033820080521


Fed minutes signal lack of desire for more rate cuts
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/fed-minutes-signal-lack-desire/story.aspx?guid=%7B5A37CE09%2D632F%2D4276%2D993B%2D3486A04F375D%7D


'Most' Fed Officials Saw April Rate Cut `Close Call' (Update1)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aE8MDo9Y5dAw&refer=home

[Semitela]

IRWIN KELLNER

Fed walking the inflation walk
Commentary: But there's more to do, starting with reducing money supply
By Dr. Irwin Kellner, MarketWatch

Last update: 9:28 p.m. EDT June 16, 2008Comments: 47PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) -- Don't look now, but when it comes to reining in inflation, the Federal Reserve has already progressed from talking the talk to walking the walk.

It's no secret that the rate of inflation has gotten to be uncomfortably high. Consumer prices are now 4.2% above a year ago. At the end of 2006, the 12-month change was less than 2%.
Gasoline prices are leading the way, up a whopping 21 percent from May 2007 levels. Transportation is up 8%. Food is 5% higher, while medical care is up a bit over 4%.

It is also apparent that, no matter how fast these visible causes of inflation might be rising, at the end of the day inflation is first and foremost a monetary phenomenon. That being the case, the job of battling inflation has been ceded to the Federal Reserve, the creator of our supply of money and credit.

Fed officials began inveighing against inflation a month or two ago. Their strategy was to convince people that the central bank would keep inflation at bay hoping that once people believed this they would act accordingly, thus creating a virtuous cycle.

However the Fed was soon perceived to be all talk and no action. As I pointed out in March, the money supply was growing at a jaw-dropping rate.

After a while, this message sank in and the Fed began to take action.
From a compound annual rate of more than 16% between the middle of January and the middle of March, M2's growth rate in the past two months has slowed to a little over 1%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The growth rate of highly liquid funds, which the St. Louis Fed calls MZM (money of zero maturity) has skidded even more, from an annual rate of 34% to only 6.5% at last count.
Further up the line, growth of the monetary base, reflecting the Fed's own balance sheet, has slowed from 7.4% to only 1.1%. Meanwhile, the St. Louis Fed's measure of bank reserves is actually lower today than it was in June 2007.

If the pundits haven't caught on to this change in Fed tactics, the markets have.
After looking for the federal funds rate to go below 2% earlier this year, the Fed funds futures market now thinks that the Fed will raise rates as soon as August.
And following an almost nonstop decline from last July through March, the 2-year swap spread has widened by a full percentage point.

Not surprisingly, Treasury yields have bounced higher all along the curve with the rise in the rate on the 10-year note outpacing that of the 3-month bill. As a result, the Treasury yield curve is now the steepest since 2005.

This slowing in the rate at which the Fed is injecting dollars into the system has also shown up in world financial markets. The dollar has risen from its recent lows and will go even higher if the Fed actually takes some bucks out of the system See May 12 column
But the markets believe that the Fed's job of reining in money growth and thus curbing inflation is not yet finished.

How do we know? Because the 10-year inflation-indexed Treasury yield spread is up significantly from its March lows. This only happens when people fear inflation enough to want to protect themselves from it. 

Irwin Kellner is chief economist for MarketWatch and for Capital One Bank. He also is Distinguished Scholar of Economics at Dowling College in Oakdale, N.Y.

[Broker_Invest]

Já não há volta a dar, as taxas vão subir e muitas familias vão falir e os bancos vão arrecadar com as consequencias. o dinheiro está cada vez mais caro e as empresas a ficar sem dinheiro para investir, o crescimento das mesmas está ameaçado, só digo uma coisa : estamos tramados! só o tempo é que vai curar as feridas abertas recentemente.

[tiagodandre]

Release Date: October 29, 2008

For immediate release
The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower its target for the federal funds rate 50 basis points to 1 percent.

The pace of economic activity appears to have slowed markedly, owing importantly to a decline in consumer expenditures. Business equipment spending and industrial production have weakened in recent months, and slowing economic activity in many foreign economies is damping the prospects for U.S. exports. Moreover, the intensification of financial market turmoil is likely to exert additional restraint on spending, partly by further reducing the ability of households and businesses to obtain credit.

In light of the declines in the prices of energy and other commodities and the weaker prospects for economic activity, the Committee expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters to levels consistent with price stability.

Recent policy actions, including today's rate reduction, coordinated interest rate cuts by central banks, extraordinary liquidity measures, and official steps to strengthen financial systems, should help over time to improve credit conditions and promote a return to moderate economic growth. Nevertheless, downside risks to growth remain. The Committee will monitor economic and financial developments carefully and will act as needed to promote sustainable economic growth and price stability.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; Timothy F. Geithner, Vice Chairman; Elizabeth A. Duke; Richard W. Fisher; Donald L. Kohn; Randall S. Kroszner; Sandra Pianalto; Charles I. Plosser; Gary H. Stern; and Kevin M. Warsh.

In a related action, the Board of Governors unanimously approved a 50-basis-point decrease in the discount rate to 1-1/4 percent. In taking this action, the Board approved the requests submitted by the Boards of Directors of the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston, New York, Cleveland, and San Francisco.



Fed Cuts Rate to 1% to Avert Prolonged Recession (Update3)

By Craig Torres

Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point to 1 percent, matching a half-century low, in an effort to avert the worst U.S. economic downturn in the postwar era.

``Downside risks to growth remain,'' the Federal Open Market Committee said today in a statement in Washington. ``Recent policy actions, including today's rate reduction, coordinated interest-rate cuts by central banks, extraordinary liquidity measures, and official steps to strengthen financial systems, should help over time to improve credit conditions and promote a return to moderate economic growth.''

Central bankers worldwide are trying to revive credit and stop a self-reinforcing downturn in consumer spending and bank lending from triggering a global recession. Today's decision follows the half-point reduction the Fed coordinated with the European Central Bank and four other central banks on Oct. 8. Borrowing costs were pared today in Norway and China.

The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.5 percent annual rate last quarter, the most since the 2001 recession, the Commerce Department's report on gross domestic product will probably show tomorrow. Economists expect the slump to persist in the fourth quarter, according to the median estimate.

`Economy Weakens'

``If the economy weakens further, it may open the door for another 25 or 50 basis points in December,'' said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina.''

Plunging commodity prices, including a 54 decline in the cost of oil from a record in July, have eased inflation pressures.

``The committee expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters to levels consistent with price stability,'' the FOMC said in today's statement.

The vote was unanimous. The Fed also lowered the discount rate a half point to 1.25 percent.

While cutting the main rate during the past 13 months from 5.25 percent, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, 54, has created six loan programs channeling at least $700 billion in cash and collateral into money markets as of Oct. 22.

``This Federal Reserve has been extremely aggressive in terms of providing liquidity,'' Frederic Mishkin, a former Fed governor and now a Columbia University professor, said in a Bloomberg Television interview before the announcement.

Confidence Weakens

Still, consumer confidence tumbled this month to a record low, and orders for durable goods, excluding automobiles and aircraft, dropped for a second straight month in September, reports showed this week. Home prices in 20 U.S. cities declined 16.6 percent in August from a year earlier as foreclosures climbed, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. The Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index is down 36 percent this year.

``The intensification of financial market turmoil is likely to exert additional restraint on spending, partly by further reducing the ability of households and businesses to obtain credit,'' the Fed's statement said. ``The pace of economic activity appears to have slowed markedly.''

The credit crisis that began in August 2007 with rising foreclosure rates has led to the collapse or forced mergers of some of Wall Street's biggest firms. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy last month, while the government seized control of American International Group Inc. and put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under conservatorship. Wachovia Corp. agreed this month to be acquired by Wells Fargo & Co.

Global financial institutions have reported $680 billion in writedowns and credit losses on home loans, mortgage-backed securities and related assets.

Funding Costs

The spread between the cost of overnight loans in New York and three-month dollar loans in London widened to 4.02 percent on Oct. 10 as investors fled risk following Lehman's Sept. 15 bankruptcy. The spread averaged 0.27 percentage point for all of last year. It has since fallen back to 2.5 percentage points.

Bernanke and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gained congressional approval this month for the use of taxpayer funds for a $700 billion bank rescue. The Treasury plans to use some of the funds in the Troubled Asset Relief Program to buy equity stakes in banks.

The Fed redoubled its aid this month, agreeing to finance the commercial paper issuance of General Electric Co. and other corporations and help money-market mutual funds raise cash to meet shareholder redemptions.

Fed's Balance Sheet

The central bank's new loan programs have expanded assets on its balance sheet by 104 percent during the past year to $1.804 trillion, or 12.6 percent of GDP.

Borrowing costs have remained high. U.S. 30-year mortgage rates tracked by Freddie Mac were 6.04 percent last week versus 6.07 percent on Jan. 3. Banks are unlikely to compete for new loans and offer lower rates so long as the outlook for the economy is dim, economists said.

``We are in an environment where they lower rates, but then spreads widen so you get no net effect,'' Vincent Reinhart, former director of the Fed Board's Division of Monetary Affairs who is now a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said before the decision. ``We are in a recession.''

Fed officials provided their forecasts for this year and the subsequent three years at the two-day meeting. The uncertainties surrounding the Fed's forecast are ``unusually large,'' and the economy may experience subpar growth ``for several quarters,'' Bernanke told the House Budget Committee on Oct. 20.

The economy ``looks terrible,'' Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital Markets Inc., said before the announcement. ``Consumer spending is going to be very negative in the fourth quarter, even with gasoline prices falling.''

Policy Tools

Now that their target rate is so low, Fed officials may have discussed alternative policy strategies such as the possibility of keeping rates low on short- and medium-term notes. Bernanke, as a Fed governor, was the top central bank official on research into ``non-traditional'' policy tools between 2002 and 2004, when the central bank last cut the benchmark lending rate to 1 percent.

The Fed has lost some control over the amount of reserves in the banking system because the total lending in some of its programs are driven by market demand. As a result, the federal funds rate has traded below its target every day since the Oct. 8 emergency rate cut.

The central bank raised the floor on the benchmark lending rate and said on Oct. 22 that interest on excess reserves would be equal to the federal funds rate minus 0.35 percentage point. The previous floor was 0.75 percentage point below the federal funds rate. Still, the move hasn't closed the gap between the target rate and the market rate.

To contact the reporters on this story: Craig Torres in Washington at [email protected]

[tiagodandre]

Discurso de Trichet
http://www.thomson-webcast.net/de/dispatching/?ecb_081204_stream_video%20


Publicado 04 Dezembro 2008  16:18
Bancos centrais cortam taxas de juro para estimular crescimento económico

Na Zona Euro, o BCE baixou a taxa de juro em 75 pontos. No Reino Unido, o Banco de Inglaterra cortou os juros para os 2%. Na Suécia, o corte foi de 175 pontos base, na Dinamarca de 75 e na Indonésia de 25. Todas estas decisões foram anunciadas hoje mas nos últimos meses, um pouco por todo o mundo, os bancos centrais têm vindo a reduzir as taxas de juro para tentar estimular o crescimento económico.

"As autoridades monetárias estão a aproximar-se de níveis historicamente baixos de taxas de juros e possivelmente não vão parar por aqui", diz Paul Dales, economista do Capital Economics. "Vamos ver os bancos centrais a aproximarem as taxas de zero o mais que conseguirem", acrescenta.

Os recentes cortes de juros têm como objectivo travar os impactos da actual contracção económica mundial. Pela primeira vez desde a II Guerra Mundial, de acordo com o FMI, as maiores economias do mundo estão em recessão simultânea.

Este movimento de redução de juros teve início nos Estados Unidos, em Setembro do ano passado. Actualmente, a taxa de referência do país está em 1%, o que não deixa muita margem de manobra a Ben Bernanke para continuar a baixar o preço do dinheiro, numa altura em que o país está à beira da recessão económica.

No Reino Unido, o Governador Mervin King admitiu a possibilidade de baixar os juros para zero, pela primeira vez, a 25 de Novembro passado. Hoje, King reduziu a taxa de juro para o nível mais baixo desde 1951: 2%.

De acordo com os dados da OCDE a economia britânica pode contrair-se 1,1% no próximo ano, a maior contracção desde 1991. No terceiro trimestre deste ano, o produto interno bruto do país contraiu-se 0,5%, a primeira queda em 16 anos.

Na Zona Euro, o BCE, que entre Dezembro de 2005 e Setembro de 2008 seguiu uma política de subida de juros, realizou hoje o maior corte de sempre: 75 pontos base.

A Dinamarca seguiu os passos do BCE, à semelhança do que aconteceu no último corte, e baixou a taxa em 75 pontos base para os 4,25%.

O banco central da Suécia realizou o maior corte desde 1992 e avançou que a economia vai entrar em recessão em 2009, após um crescimento de 0,9% este ano.

Taxas de juro em queda por todo o mundo

Estes são apenas cinco exemplos dos muitos que se têm registado um pouco por todo o mundo. O banco central da Indonésia realizou hoje um corte inesperado de juros, pela primeira vez em um ano.

"Esta decisão surgiu após analisarmos as perspectivas económicas e financeiras, tanto no mercado nacional como internacional. O impacto da crise financeira na economia global está a tornar-se real", afirmou o banco central.

Na Nova Zelândia o banco central reduziu a taxa em 1,5 pontos percentuais para os 5% e já anunciou novos cortes. Na terça-feira, o banco central da Austrália voltou a cortar a taxa de juro em um ponto percentual, tendo realizado até agora o maior número de reduções desde a recessão de 1991.

Ontem, o banco central da Tailândia realizou o maior corte de juros de sempre para os 2,75%.


                Taxa de juro actual           Taxa de juro anterior

Zona Euro          2,50%                               3,25%
Estados Unidos    1%                                   1,50%
Reino Unido         2%                                   3%
Suiça                 1%                                   2%
Noruega             4,75%                               5,75%
Austrália            4,25%                               5,25%
Nova Zelândia     5%                                   6,50%
Indonésia           9,25%                               9,50%
Tailândia            2,75%                               3,75%