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Showing 91 - 100 of 2991 results for Benjamin Ong

Chief economist update: Powell said, Yellen said

BENJAMIN ONG  |  WEDNESDAY, 24 MAR 2021
The monetary and fiscal masters of the US of A fronted the Senate Banking Committee - as required under the March 2020 COVID-19 relief law - singing a rendition of Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. In his testimony, Federal Reserve chair ...

Chief economist update: BOE not letting its guard down

BENJAMIN ONG  |  TUESDAY, 23 MAR 2021
"At its meeting ending on 17 March 2021, the Committee judged that the existing stance of monetary policy remains appropriate. The MPC voted unanimously to maintain Bank Rate at 0.1%. The Committee voted unanimously for the Bank of England to maintain ...

Chief economist update: What a difference an Australian year makes

BENJAMIN ONG  |  MONDAY, 22 MAR 2021
"For all those times you stood by me... You're the one who held me up Never let me fall You're the one who saw me through it all." -Celine Dion What a difference a year makes, ey? The year 2020 started out disastrous (literally) for the country ...

Chief economist update: When 6%-plus growth is deemed too low

BENJAMIN ONG  |  FRIDAY, 19 MAR 2021
GDP growth of over 6% for 2021. Chinese premier Li Kequiang announced this target growth rate at the opening of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on March 5. Many a time, China's annual economic growth ...

Chief economist update: The do-nothing Fed

BENJAMIN ONG  |  THURSDAY, 18 MAR 2021
Ho-hum. So much for speculations over the Fed's thoughts and actions, Powell and Co. did what financial markets expected - nothing - at their 16-17 March FOMC meeting. "The Committee decided to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at ...

Chief economist update: Japan to double down on stimulus?

BENJAMIN ONG  |  MONDAY, 15 MAR 2021
It won't be long now until cherry blossoms start blooming in Japan. But just like these blossoms' short-lived wonder, the Land of the Rising Sun's economic recovery through various crises going back to the late 1980s-early 1990s proved to ...

Chief economist update: ECB gives PEPP talk

BENJAMIN ONG  |  FRIDAY, 12 MAR 2021
It's not what the European Central Bank (ECB) did at its March governing council meeting - keeping monetary policy settings unchanged - but its PEPP (pandemic emergency purchase programme) talk that sent the Euro Stoxx-50 index on the up and up. ...

Chief economist update: Confidence contagion

BENJAMIN ONG  |  THURSDAY, 11 MAR 2021
Australia is once again being infected - infected with optimism, that is. We have discussed previously how the domestic economy has contracted less sharply than its peers and has rebounded stronger relative to its peer, later confirmed by the OECD 'Economic ...

Chief economist update: OECD sees stronger growth ahead

BENJAMIN ONG  |  WEDNESDAY, 10 MAR 2021
The year 2021 is shaping up to be a mirror image of the year that preceded it - annus horribilis 2020 - when economic growth forecasts were being sliced as the coronavirus epidemic that started in China turned into a pandemic of biblical proportions. ...

Chief economist update: Getting hot, hot, hot

BENJAMIN ONG  |  MONDAY, 8 MAR 2021
Crude oil remains hot with prices soaring to 14-month highs. This year to date, the price of Brent oil has surged by 30.5% to US$66.85 per barrel and that of the WTI soared by 31.2% -- more than making up for the full-year 2020's loss of 24.4% and ...