From 1983 through 1999, policy directives issued by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) contained a statement pertaining to possible future policy actions, which was known as the “symmetry,” “tilt,” or “bias” of the directive. In May 1999, the FOMC began to announce publicly the symmetry of its current directive.
The study of foreign exchange intervention has been slowed by the traditional reluctance of central banks to release intervention data to researchers. To circumvent the lack of actual intervention data, researchers often have used publicly available foreign exchange reserves data to proxy for the confidential intervention data.
The popular assertion—that banks raise loan rates more readily than they lower them in opposite circumstances—returns to the forefront during every period of declining market interest rates. Perhaps this assertion captures attention because since the 1980s, the ubiquity of credit card balances means that consumer loan rates affect more people than ever.
The author analyzes the future prospects of the euro to be an international currency from a portfolio perspective.
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