After a bad Tuesday in America and a bad Wednesday in Asia and Europe, central bankers are taking steps that they hope will turn things around:
WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve led a coordinated round of global official rate cuts on Wednesday, easing by a half-point, as did the European Central Bank, Bank of England and Swiss, Canadian and Swedish banks. In an attempt to stem unprecedented global market turmoil, the Fed cut its key federal funds lending rate by half a percentage point to 1.5 percent and also lowered its discount rate by the same amount to 1.75 percent.
The ECB also cut by a half-point to 3.75 percent as did the Bank of England, taking its rate to 4.5 percent.
Not unexpectedly, market futures are soaring right now, but whether this will actually accomplish anything is anyone’s guess.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:37 am
I see that cnn’s lead story today is that Central bank’s in the USA and England are leading the way with Global Interest rate cuts.
I thought Australia was leading the way as it cut its central bank by 1% of the official rate 24 hours before the US and England.