Several of the most important central banks in the world concluded their monetary policy meetings on Thursday, but none initiated any new measures.
The Bank of Japan upgraded its assessment of the economy and said that further policy moves would depend on inflation.
The European Central Bank left its key interest rate unchanged at 0.5 percent with President Mario Draghi telling a news conference that he was “very, very cautious about the recovery” and that he stands “ready to act”.
The Bank of England also left monetary policy unchanged, as did Sweden's Riksbank.
Despite the lack of fresh policy moves from these central banks, global bond yields rose on Thursday as positive economic data from the US suggest that at least the Federal Reserve may be close to slowing its bond purchases.
The Institute for Supply Management said on Thursday that its US services index rose to 58.6 in August, its highest since December 2005, from 56.0 in July.
ADP reported that private employers in the US added 176,000 jobs in August.
In another sign of an improving US labour market, new claims for jobless benefits fell 9,000 last week to 323,000 and the four-week moving average fell 3,000 to 328,500, its lowest since October 2007.
Dampening some of the optimism on the US economy, though, was a 2.4 percent fall in new orders for manufactured goods in July, the most in four months.
Also seeing a fall in factory orders in July was Germany, where orders fell 2.7 percent. However, this was mostly a reversal of the boost that orders received in June from the Paris Air Show, when orders had jumped 5.0 percent.
No comments:
Post a Comment