Press Review: Draghi Says ECB Measures Can And Will Restore Inflation to Goal

BLOOMBERG

Draghi Says ECB Measures Can And Will Restore Inflation to Goal

(Bloomberg) -- Mario Draghi said the European Central Bank's expanded asset purchases will succeed in pushing inflation in the euro area back toward its goal.

"We can deploy and we will deploy monetary policy in a way that can and will stabilize inflation in line with our objective," the ECB president said at a conference in Frankfurt, three days into his 1.1 trillion-euro ($1.2 trillion) bond-buying program. "Our monetary policy is certainly supporting the recovery."

In his first public appearance since QE started, Draghi can point to falling yields on government debt and a slide in the euro as signs that the program to buy 60 billion euros a month of sovereign and private-sector debt is making a mark. What he can't yet show is whether banks and companies will respond by putting the fresh cash to work in the real economy.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-11/draghi-says-ecb-measures-can-and-will-restore-inflation-to-goal

REUTERS
Kuwait expects OPEC to continue policy beyond June

(Reuters) - OPEC is likely to maintain its production policy at a meeting in June, Kuwait's OPEC governor said on Tuesday in the first public comment on what would be a crucial decision to determine the direction of global oil prices in the second half of the year.

Many OPEC oil ministers including Saudi Arabia's Ali al-Naimi have defended the organization's November decision not to cut production but instead defend market share and curtail the output of more expensive producers such as the United States.

The accord sent oil prices below $50 per barrel, extending a sharp decline that began in June amid a global glut of crude.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/10/us-eurozone-greece-varoufakis-idUSKBN0M60MN20150310

BLOOMBERG

Japan Still Far From Done Cheapening Yen, Survey Suggests

(Bloomberg) -- Japan's central bank is far from done driving down the yen if it wants to secure a 2 percent inflation target next year, a survey of economists by Bloomberg News shows.

The median estimate of 27 economists in a survey March 5-10 shows that the yen needs to fall to 140 per dollar, a level last seen in 1998, to help the Bank of Japan meet its goal. Even after a 23 percent decline since Governor Haruhiko Kuroda began record monetary stimulus, that means a further 13 percent drop from the current level.

Kuroda and his colleagues are projected to step up their stimulus later this year, once it becomes clear that it's unlikely to achieve a 2 percent increase in consumer prices in or around the 12 months starting in April, a separate survey shows. What's unclear is whether politicians, Japan's trading partners and the small companies hurt by a weaker yen would tolerate actions that sent the yen down so much.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-11/japan-still-far-from-done-cheapening-yen-survey-suggests-i747j39o