In the past week the European Central Bank on March 10 made the following announcements:
- Boosting the qualitative easing budget from 60,000 million Euros to 80,000 million Euros per month including corporate bonds (starting April 2016 and ending March 2017)
- Deposit rates will be reduced to -0.40% per year and cut the main financing operation’s interest rates from 0.05% to 0%
- Initiating targeted long-term refinancing for a period of four years. The market reacted negatively to the ECB's announcements, indicating there wouldn't be any further cuts in interest rates. The Euro would have an exchange rate that would be on par with the US dollar and the EuroStoxx value will be decreased.
As for China, international reserves have dwindled for four consecutive months, resulting in a loss of $28.57 billion since January 2016. China's international reserves were recorded at $3.2 billion in February which is considered to be the lowest total since December 2011. Chinese exports in February decreased 25.4% year-over-year (another record loss since May 2009) thus making an economic growth of 6.5%-7% a challenging task to accomplish. Other than that, the country's private debts levels are also a cause for concern.
Important events to occur next week include the FED meeting to be held throughout March 15-16 and the BOJ meeting on March 15. Despite the lowered non-farm payroll numbers having increased to 242,000 in February, no changes will be made as of now. Unemployment rate stays fixed at 4.9%.