Archive - Mar 29, 2011 - Story

With so much changing in Fukushima on a daily basis, it is easy to lose track of what is happening on any given day. In fact, some like Zero Hedge are now weary of reporting Fukushima news due to expectations of a full detraction within half an hour or so, after someone is discovered to have no idea what a decimal comma is, or another is simply lying, in ongoing efforts to spread confusion. Which is why the following Q&A from Reuters on the latest situation in the radioactive power plant is a useful recap for virtually everyone, even though most likely the party line, not to mention "fact" will change shortly.

In the second day full of Fed president speeches we hear from St. Louis hawk James Bullard who spoke in Prague on recent developments in monetary policy, and delivered remarks titled “U.S. Monetary Policy: Recent Developments” as part of a central bankers panel discussion at the 19th European Banking and Financial Forum in Prague. During his discussion, Bullard explained how the Fed’s second round of
quantitative easing was “a classic easing of monetary policy” and “an
effective tool, even while the policy rate is near zero.”  He also
discussed the situation in early 2011, stating that “U.S. growth
prospects remain reasonably good for 2011.”  He added that recent global
and domestic events “present considerable uncertainty, but can be
resolved in benign ways.” Finally, Bullard talked about the path to
normalization.  “Discussion of the normalization of U.S. policy will
likely return as the key issue in 2011,” he concluded.  Overall, the presentation had a not surprisingly hawkish tone. Don't forget it was precisely a year ago that the Fed was being extremely hawkish all over again, with reverse repos flying left and right, and everyone expecting that the economic "growth" was self sustainable, until it wasn't.

The decline in house prices may have slowed in January, but consumer confidence probably dropped in March. Daily POMO viagra today is in midget dose, with just $1.5 billion in monetization.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 29/03/11