Wednesday 8 October 2014

Markets fall as IMF cuts growth forecast, BoJ maintains monetary policy

Markets fell on Tuesday. The S&P 500 and the STOXX Europe 600 both fell by 1.5 percent. Oil fell 1.7 percent. The US 10-year Treasury yield fell eight basis points to 2.34 percent.

The market declines came as the International Monetary Fund cut its outlook for global growth in 2015 to 3.8 percent in its latest World Economic Outlook. This compares with a 4.0 percent forecast in July. Growth is expected to be 3.3 percent this year.

The Bank of Japan is also looking less optimistic. While maintaining its pledge of increasing base money at an annual pace of 60-70 trillion yen, it also noted that factory output was weakening.

Indeed, a report on Tuesday showed that Japan's leading index fell to 104.0 in August from 105.4 in July while the coincident index fell to 108.5 from 109.9.

Meanwhile, a report from Germany on Tuesday showed that industrial production there fell 4.0 percent in August, the biggest decline since January 2009, while in the UK, industrial production was unchanged in August as manufacturing output rose 0.1 percent.

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