Advertisement ::

Enlarge Cartoon

The US Federal Reserve said Wednesday 16 December that the US economy is improving, and in the hours that followed the US dollar gained against most other major currencies. It was up 0.9 percent against the euro, a three-month high. The Fed said it wants to keep interest rates “extremely low” but that figures on jobs and consumer spending are showing positive signs.

Links to other sites: Bloomberg, Financial Times, Time Magazine

Bloomberg reports that the Bank of England is today expected to cut benchmark interest rates by half a point to 1.5%, the lowest rate since the bank was founded in 1694, “as officials move closer to the limits of conventional monetary policy to fight the recession.”