European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde looks on during a debate on the 2018 annual report of the ECB, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Feb. 11, 2020.The European Central Bank is set to spend just over a trillion euros on asset purchases this year alone, has eased its rules on what it can buy and when, and has stepped up supportive measures for banks to prevent the coronavirus crisis from hammering the economy.
The Bank of Japan is kicking off a hefty central banking week on Monday. Analysts expect that the coronavirus may offer policy makers in Tokyo a justification to scrap what has become an obsolete, largely symbolic bond-buying target as it takes stronger action to cushion the economic blow from the pandemic.
While the meeting is expected to be less dramatic than the emergency one in March, investors expect to get more details on the Fed’s special lending programs, its asset-purchase program and the forward guidance on the target range for the federal funds rate, analysts said.A staff member holds a thermometer in front of a China Construction Bank counter at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport on April 10.
Lenders, which governments have ordered to freeze dividends and move to the front line of the worst economic crisis in living memory, have emerged as the unequivocal top stock market losers of the crash, faring even worse than travel and leisure stocks. It could offer a springboard for recovery when coronavirus lockdowns finally end. Cheap oil lowers energy, transport and manufacturing costs, puts money in consumers’ pockets and saves oil-importing countries cash, too, which can then be spent on more useful things.