With many having characterized China as “uninvestible” just a few months ago, investors’ enthusiastic response in recent weeks to a perceived shift in the authorities’ policy reaction function is also likely to be an overreaction. It grossly oversimplifies the competing priorities of a country with internal imbalances, inefficient resource allocation channels, and exposure to further geopolitical tensions.

Judging from the public commentary, last Friday’s US jobs report confused economists in terms of their understanding of economic developments in the world’s largest economy and the policy approach of the Federal Reserve.

The US economic data released in early August not only triggered a brief, but dramatic episode of financial-market volatility. It also fueled an abnormal degree of instability in forecasts by leading Wall Street economists, suggesting that they, like the Federal Reserve, may have lost their strategic bearings.

This year’s presentation by Chair Jerome Powell is eagerly awaited due to the economic fluidity and financial volatility that the US has been experiencing, and its spillovers to the rest of the world.

The inflation numbers this week — both for producer and consumer prices — have served to reassure markets in two distinct ways: confirming continued progress in the battle against high price increases and supporting the ongoing shift in the Federal Reserve’s focus from its inflation mandate to its employment mandate.

After absorbing the US Federal Reserve's repeated assurances that a “fundamentally healthy” economy gave it ample time to decide on when to cut interest rates, the market was caught by surprise when new data suggested otherwise. Such is the danger of signaling a consensus where none exists.

Family Feud, a popular game show when I was growing up, would ask contestants to guess how a group of people had answered a specific question. It served as a regular and early reminder for me of the importance of supplementing one’s thinking with external perspectives.

US stock markets have remained bullish in the face of deepening domestic and international risks, owing to three key factors. But with two of these coming under pressure, the durability of the current cycle will depend on the third: the US Federal Reserve.

The US inflation rate, which had surged to over 9% two years ago, is now around 3%. Based on current trends, it should settle at 2.5%-3%, a range that most economists would deem consistent with financial stability, including a firm anchoring of inflationary expectations.

After years of insufficient investment and sagging productivity in the UK, the Labour Party recognizes that achieving high-quality growth will require a comprehensive policy approach that builds on many intermediate objectives. But devising a strategy is only the first step; the real challenge lies in implementation.

Whether traditionally thought of as “hawks” or “doves,” Federal Reserve officials have recently converged to notable uniformity in their policy signaling of high interest rates for longer. This has come at a time when more Wall Street analysts are embracing a wider band of uncertainty for their projections of economic growth and inflation.

Following yet another release of US macroeconomic data that lies outside the range that anyone had predicted, the only certainty is that forecasters' jobs are not getting any easier. But while the global outlook is growing murkier, it has not become inscrutable.

I have been arguing for almost a year now, here and elsewhere, that US consumer price inflation would become sticky after a period of favorable disinflation going into the end of 2023. Wednesday’s hotter-than-expected data release, the third in a row, is evidence that this scenario is indeed unfolding.

Many of us have our favorite economic and financial indicators. I’m referring to those indicators that don’t get a lot - if any - attention from the television channels geared toward finance and markets and yet can provide important insights. One of my favorites - the divergence between key US and German fixed-income benchmarks - is at a notable level.

What an impressive start to the year for US stocks! Not only did the S&P 500 Index achieve its largest first-quarter gain since 2019, it did so amidst significant challenges.

With India's development continuing to gain steam, one of the biggest challenges will be to avoid the mistake that others have made when they failed to recognize their newly acquired global systemic influence and adapt accordingly. Both China and Big Tech show that it is never too early to start managing one's own rise.

For the first time in quite a while, there is an alignment between what the Federal Reserve is signaling about its interest-rate setting this year and what the markets think will happen.

Despite rosy forecasts, the US economy faces powerful headwinds that call into question its ability to serve as the world’s main growth driver. These challenges are compounded by domestic and geopolitical uncertainties that have not been reflected in market valuations and economic assessments.

Contrary to many Western analysts’ expectations, the shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world economy will not lead to a China-led alternative order but to global instability. Amid deepening economic fragmentation, leaders must forestall a rapid descent into chaos by strengthening the existing multilateral architecture.

November will be etched in the memories of investors as a remarkable month.

Despite an increasingly challenging economic and geopolitical environment, the global economy performed better than expected over the past year. But although analysts’ projections for 2023 were too pessimistic, it appears that consensus forecasts for the coming year may have have swung too far in the opposite direction.

With so many moving pieces, and under such unconventional conditions, navigating today’s global economic landscape would be challenging for anyone. But even if we cannot anticipate every contingency, we can understand quite a lot by assessing the US Federal Reserve’s prospects for engineering a soft economic landing in the near term.

The US Federal Reserve is adrift, and it has only itself to blame. Regardless of whether its policy-setting committee announces another interest-rate hike in June, its top priority now should be to address the structural weaknesses that led it astray in the first place.

The US Federal Reserve's growing list of policymaking, supervisory, and communications failures is becoming increasingly consequential not just for Americans but also for the rest of the world.

The sudden loss of confidence by depositors in some US banks is causing many to focus on the scope for financial contagion and the needed policy responses. What should not be overlooked is the other, and slower, contagion channel in play — that involving enablers of economic growth...

As US inflation gradually eases, the claim that today’s inflationary pressures are the result of a temporary supply shock has re-emerged.

Having oscillated between anticipating another 50-basis-point interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve next week or a downshift to 25 basis points, traders have settled solidly on the latter, guided both by Fed officials’ comments and by media reports.

Over the past two years, the US Federal Reserve has repeatedly erred in its analysis, policymaking, communications, and governance.

Markets surged on Wednesday after Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, indicated that the world’s most powerful central bank would slow the pace of rate increases this month.

To say that the world’s top central banks have been under strain this year would be a big understatement given the amount of political pressure, public blame and economic condemnation thrown their way.

After the Federal Reserve meets Nov. 1 and 2 this week, we may know more about how this Fed will be remembered: as a Volcker Fed that decisively conquered inflation or, instead, a Burns Fed that allowed the country to slip into a stagflationary quagmire.

The heated debate about how central banks should respond to high and persistent inflation has focused primarily on how high interest rates should go and how long should they stay there.

After previously eschewing interest-rate hikes, the US Federal Reserve has been tightening monetary policy at an unprecedented rate.

Frequent flyers are accustomed to turbulence on some flights. Indeed, many expect it. Despite such anticipation, however, the turbulence can once in a while create significant anxiety among even the most seasoned travelers.

Rather than using the traditional asset-class analysis, I have found employing a risk-factor approach particularly helpful in understanding the impact of economics and policy on markets this year.

This is an environment in which it is hard to argue for silver linings, especially when so many analysts are warning that additional losses may be ahead in both public and private markets. Yet three are already evident.

While the market chatter in the run-up to Wednesday’s Federal Reserve interest rate decision has understandably focused on whether the increase will be 50 or 75 basis points, the critical issue in play is a broader one.

The most recent change on the supply side of the global oil market has involved Saudi Arabia suddenly and dramatically regaining its swing-producer role.

Last week’s rising stock prices suggested that many investors are still wishing the Federal Reserve will step in to counter downward pressures on the market. Hopes for this “Fed put,” however, may be confusing the Fed’s willingness to act with its ability to do so.

Rich countries have shown impressive unity in helping Ukraine counter the Russian invasion.

With so many analysts, not to mention market pricing, having settled on a 50-basis-point interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve this week, it would be understandable to assume that it’s a “done deal” when it comes to what the central bank will announce at the conclusion of its policy meeting on Wednesday. The situation could not be further from the truth.

The International Monetary Fund’s significant downward revision to its 2022 World Economic Outlook, just one quarter into the calendar year, has generated headlines and hand-wringing around the world.

Much of the commentary about the Ukraine war’s implications for the investment-management industry has tended to be both immediate and narrow, particularly in discussions about the spillovers for different segments. By zooming out, however, some longer-term ramifications become more apparent for both public and private markets.

Judging from price movements on Monday, the Federal Reserve risks slipping further into a no-win interaction with markets that is more familiar to developing countries that lack policy credibility than to a systemically important central bank — let alone the world’s most powerful one.

The Federal Reserve is in a deep hole of its own making as its top policy committee meets this week to announce the start of a long-anticipated cycle to raise interest rates. Inflation is at a 40-year high and still accelerating, the Fed’s inflation-fighting credibility is damaged, and it has lost control of the monetary policy narrative.

Whether it was friends or total strangers, everyone seemed to have the same question for me on a recent trip. Is it time to buy the dip in stocks? After all, U.S. stock markets have already had a few encouraging bounces in the past two weeks of trading, though they proved both temporary and more than fully reversible.

While the Russian and Ukrainian economies are being hit the hardest by Russia's invasion, the economic consequences of the war will not be confined to the countries fighting it.

The US Federal Reserve’s series of suboptimal decisions in the last 12 months regarding inflation means that its next policy decision also is likely to be suboptimal.

Tragically, life has been upended for those who were living in a peaceful Ukraine only a few days ago. Now their country is under intense military attack and creeping occupation. Many fear for their lives. Others have become refugees.

The global economy has less policy flexibility to deal with a possible stagflationary shock, and central banks have few good options to counter possible financial market malfunction that would amplify economic challenges.