Markets will spend this week trying to figure out what the election news from Europe means. I’m sure that explosions in Ukraine won’t make EuroZone markets less nervous but the big event is the vote for the European parliament.
At its meeting yesterday the European Central Bank didn’t take any action on slow economic growth in the EuroZone or on an inflation rate so low that it threatens to turn into deflation. But, said bank president Mario Draghi, the ECB is “comfortable with acting next time.”
Everybody loves Europe—except for Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank, who is worried that the markets are getting ahead of themselves. In an April 24 speech Draghi said that a rise in money market interest rates threatened to slow still fragile growth in the EuroZone’s economy. The bank next meets on Thursday
When we checked in with the global economy last week, the numbers had raised questions about growth in developed economies. A pick up in growth in the world’s developed economies is supposed to offset a dip in growth in the developing world in 2014.
A reminder today that financial markets in the U.S. and the rest of the world may have gotten a bit ahead of themselves recently in their optimism about economic growth for 2014. Projections for better than expected growth in the U.S. and EuroZone economies—and for stable growth in China—are just that, projections, today’s actual data demonstrates.
