April 2015 - Page 2 of 2 - Laminar Capital

Data Watching

by Cameron Rae | Apr 13, 2015 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts

To listen to this week’s podcast giving a more comprehensive view, click the link below.

The fitful global economic recovery, and the uncertainties it has spawned about the outlook, have caused central banks to question how monetary policy should respond. The long established notion that monetary policy works with long and variable lags, and therefore should be applied pre-emptively, seems to have fallen out of favour with central banks. Instead, most central banks have become dedicated data watchers to help determine when to adjust monetary policy. Given that there are always lags gathering and publishing economic data and some economic readings, such as employment and unemployment, are known to lag changes in economic growth, the central banks penchant for data watching risks monetary policy changes that occur far too late to affect economic conditions in the way that policymakers desire.

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Market Commentary 13 April 2015

by Stephen Roberts | Apr 13, 2015 | Market Commentary

Laminar economist Stephen Roberts gives his insights to the week. Click here to listen.

Market Drivers

by Stephen Roberts | Apr 8, 2015 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts, Uncategorized

To listen to this weeks podcast giving a more comprehensive view, click the link below.

After rising strongly in January risk assets were mixed in February, continuing to rise in regions and countries subject to easier monetary conditions, such as the Euro-area and Japan but pulling back mostly elsewhere. Economic readings released over the past month were on balance comparatively soft in the United States and China, but were slightly firmer than expected in Europe. Further falls in key industrial commodity prices such as the price of iron ore periodically dented investors’ enthusiasm for Australian shares. Among the major share markets the German DAX was one of the strongest in March, lifting by 5.0% after gaining 6.6% in February. Japan’s Nikkei was up 2.2% after gaining 6.4% in February. On the softer side, the US S&P 500 was down by 1.7% while the FTSE 100 fell by 2.5%, The Australian ASX 200 fell by 0.6%, after gaining 6.1% in February.