Saturday, June 22, 2013

Global Sell-Off Shows Fed Reach Beyond the U.S.

Despite a partial recovery in the markets on Friday, tumbling stock, bond and commodity prices around the world over the past month are demonstrating just how reliant the global economy has become on the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve.
In the weeks since the Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, first indicated that the central bank might start to pare back its support for the economy, markets in Asia, Europe and Latin America have fallen even more sharply than those in the United States, threatening economic growth in many countries.
While leading market measures in the United States have declined 4 percent over the last month, an index of the world’s stock markets has slumped more than 6 percent.
“The Fed isn’t just the U.S.'s central bank. It’s the world’s central bank,” said Mark Frey, the chief strategist at the Cambridge Mercantile Group. 

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